On June 22nd, a user of a popular hacker forum, advertised for sale data from 700 million LinkedIn users. The user posted a sample of the data that includes 1 million LinkedIn users. The sample was found to contain the following information:
- Email addresses
- Full names
- Phone numbers
- Physical addresses
- Geolocation records
- LinkedIn username and profile URL
- Personal and professional experience/background
- Gender
- Other social media accounts and usernames
Possible impact of this latest LinkedIn data leak
This latest LinkedIn leak did not contain any financial records or login credentials. LinkedIn’s response acknowledges the abuse of LinkedIn data, but states that:
“Our teams have investigated a set of alleged LinkedIn data that has been posted for sale. We want to be clear that this is not a data breach and no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. Our initial investigation has found that this data was scraped from LinkedIn and other various websites and includes the same data reported earlier this year in our April 2021 scraping update.”
This leak does, unfortunately, pose a considerable number of LinkedIn users at risk of:
- Identity theft
- Phishing attempts
- Social engineering attacks
- Hacked accounts
- Cybercriminals can use the information found in the leaked files with other data to create full detailed profiles of their potential victims. Additionally, bad actors can use the available data, particularly usernames, emails, and personal information to gain access to other accounts.
Primarily, this information exposes LinkedIn users to a higher risk of exploitation by bad actors. And once your private data is leaked, there is no getting it back. We recommend that you be extra vigilant in the next few weeks and watch out for any phishing or any unusual account activity. If you are concerned about your cyber hygiene, join us at our next cybersecurity training session.
Source: https://restoreprivacy.com/linkedin-data-leak-700-million-users/