The data sold includes full usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.
Once again, over the past few months, the social network LinkedIn has become the victim of a massive theft of its users’ data. An archive of data containing 632,699 LinkedIn profiles was put up for sale on a hacker forum.
The data sold includes user full names, email addresses, phone numbers, date of birth and gender, social media link IDs, and other data that users have publicly provided on their LinkedIn profiles. Despite the fact that such information is not confidential, attackers can use it to quickly and easily find new targets based on the methods of social engineering preferred by criminals.
LinkedIn’s refusal to view this situation as a security issue could potentially allow cybercriminals to collect data on new victims with impunity. However, representatives of the social network have a different opinion on this matter:
“Our teams researched a set of alleged LinkedIn data that was up for sale. We want to make it clear that this is not data theft and no personal data of LinkedIn members has been disclosed, ”LinkedIn said in a statement.
LinkedIn has experienced three such incidents in the past four months. In April of this year, an archive with data collected from 500 million LinkedIn profiles was put up for sale on a popular forum on the darknet . At the end of June , a database of 700 million LinkedIn users went on sale . With about 756 million people currently registered on the social network, the leak potentially affected 92% of the platform’s users.
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