Your Linkedin Professional Network May Be Under Cybercriminals Radar

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Cybercrime, cybercrime on LinkedIn, fake LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn

With over 400 million users globally, LinkedIn has become a prime target of cyber criminals. Professional networks on LinkedIn are being targeted by cyber criminals using fake LinkedIn profiles.

Your LinkedIn connections are at risk!

Cybercrime, cybercrime on LinkedIn, fake LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn

What are these Cyber Criminals doing on LinkedIn?

1. Mapping out the connections of business professionals.
2. Trying to scrape out the contact information of these connections.
3. They copy information directly from real LinkedIn profiles.
4. After getting these contact details these cyber criminals use it later to send spear-phishing emails.
5. They stuff their profiles with Keywords to increase their visibility in search results.
6. Attract new connections by posing as potential recruiters for fake firms.
7. Profile photos – They use photos of women pulled out from real professionals profile or stock image sites.
8. They are trying connect with professionals from multiple industries.
9. Other Targeted Industries- Oil & Gas and Information security

With the usage of fake LinkedIn accounts, these cyber criminals able to establish a sense of credibility among business professionals. And this is further helping them to initiate new connections.

Cybercrime, cybercrime on LinkedIn, fake LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn

How were these Fake profiles identified?

A growing number of incidents have been noted over the last year. These involved the use fake LinkedIn accounts to target members of the business-oriented social networking service.

1. Symantec has been working along with LinkedIn to take down some fake accounts that they came across during research.
2. A specific pattern is followed by these fake accounts – according to Symantec
3. Tools like TinEye and Google’s Search by Image were used to identify fake profiles by performing Reverse image search.

fraud examinations in cybercrime(1)

What can users do to protect their personal and professional information?

As these scammers are trying to scrape contact information from the connections of a user, it can include personal and professional email addresses and even their phone numbers.

1. According to Symantec- LinkedIn users’ needs to be very skeptical before they add anyone to their network.
2. Don’t add anyone you think you haven’t met before.
3. Try a reverse-image search using tineye.Com or Google Image search.
4. Try copying and pasting the profile information on a search engine to identify real and fake accounts.
5. These fake profiles even received endorsements from real LinkedIn users.

Remember that your security is in your own hands, do not share any unwanted information about yourself or your connections to any stranger.

Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Featured Image.

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