Info-Tech

LinkedIn Confirms Data Breach of 500 Million Subscribers, Personal Details Being Sold Online

In the last few months, there were several data breaches, and the recent victim of a massive data breach is LinkedIn. The data over 500 million of its users have been scraped from the platform and posted on the web for sale. The breached data includes email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, account IDs, full names, links to their social media accounts, and other details. The leaked data is reportedly being sold by an unknown user on a hacker forum. He has dumped data of over 2 million users as sample proof. 

Moreover, the hacker is asking for a 4 digit (in USD) in exchange for the breached data, probably in the form of Bitcoins. This happened just after a similar massive breach of over 500 million users was leaked. 

Currently, LinkedIn has over 740 million users, the firm mentions this on its website, which clearly shows that data of over two-third of its subscribers has been compromised and being sold online. 

The data-breach news was first reported by CyberNews, and LinkedIn and later confirmed the breach to business Insider. 

In a recent statement, a LinkedIn spokesperson told the media- “While we’re still investigating this issue, the posted dataset appears to include publicly viewable information that was scraped from LinkedIn combined with data aggregated from other websites or companies. Scraping our members’ data from LinkedIn violates our terms of service and we are constantly working to protect our members and their data”

Moreover, the security analyst Paul Prudhomme told Business Insider that the dataset, if exposed to ad actors, could lead to attacks on many firms via their employees. He added- that these cyber-attacks are more likely to succeed due to the rise of remote work, and the use of personal devices for office work. 

A few days back, the personal data of 533 million Facebook users was leaked on a hacking forum. That’s what happened with LinkedIn and made things quite tough for the users. The firm is working towards the same and to fix the issue as soon as possible.  

Note: This news is based on millions of articles over the internet, Global Business Line does not take any responsibility for the facts and information mentioned in this news article.

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