Data of 500 million LinkedIn users put up for sale on a hacker forum, and another 2 million data leaked as proof of concept.
Data of 500 million LinkedIn users put up for sale on a hacker forum, and another 2 million data leaked as proof of concept.
According to CyberNews researchers, the leak was posted to a forum popular with hackers by a user asking for a four-digit sum, presumably in bitcoin, to access the entire database of stolen information.
The author of the post claims that the data was scraped from LinkedIn. The CyberNews researchers were able to confirm it but added that " it's unclear whether the threat actor is selling up-to-date LinkedIn profiles, or if the data has been taken or aggregated from a previous breach suffered by LinkedIn or other companies."
To prove the info's legitimacy, the leaker included 2 million records as a sample that users on the form can view for $2 worth of forum-specific credits.
The leaked data contains professional information from LinkedIn profiles, including LinkedIn IDs, full names, email addresses, contact numbers, genders, links to LinkedIn profiles, links to other social media profiles, professional titles and other work-related data.
The leaked data did not contain any credit card or financial details, or legal documents that could be used for fraud.
With the leaked information in hand, the hackers can carry out phishing attacks and social engineering attacks or even commit identity theft.
Particularly determined attackers can combine information found in the leaked files with other data breaches to create detailed profiles of their potential victims.
Precautions to be taken;
- LinkedIn users must be aware of suspicious LinkedIn messages and connection requests from unknown people.
- Change the LinkedIn account passwords and email account password connected with LinkedIn profiles.
- Consider using a password manager to create strong passwords and store them securely.
- Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on all your online accounts.
- Install strong anti-phishing and anti-malware software.
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