Reported LinkedIn Data Breach: What You Need to Know

 

 

Just upon the heels of the Facebook Data Breach comes a recent report regarding scraped data of 500 million LinkedIn users being sold online on a popular hacker forum. It was mentioned that 2 million of these records were leaked as samples that contained professional-identifying information, such as full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, and other work-related data. 

 

What You Should Know

Leaked information can be used to instigate malicious attacks, such as:

• Targeted phishing attacks.
• Brute-forcing the passwords and email addresses of compromised online accounts.
• SIM swap attacks, which use phone numbers to access multi-factor authentication codes.
• Smishing attacks, which also use phone numbers to text and induce individuals to reveal personal identifying information, which can be used to answer security questions and get into accounts, such as passwords, birth dates, or credit card numbers. Use Trend Micro Check to detect suspicious links ahead!
• Possible job scams. Please beware that scammers may offer fake job opportunities or even ask you to pay an “advance fee” for those jobs.
• Lastly, identity theft on the people whose information was exposed by a combination of the above-mentioned attacks.

 

 

Check If Your Information Was Leaked. Read the full article here.