LinkedIn has been subjected to a major data breach with around 500 million users believed to be impacted. It is said that data including email addresses, workplace information, account IDs, phone numbers, full names, and links to social media accounts, etc have been scraped off the platform by an unknown hacker group.
The said group has posted data of around 2 million users as evidence of the data breach. It is believed that the group wants to post the user data online for sale.
Read - Survey Shows 81% Of Indian Users Are Concerned About Using Some Apps Due To Data-Sharing Concerns
As is the case with most data breaches, there is a ransom involved. The group is reportedly asking for a four-digit ransom in the form of Bitcoin (BTC) in return for the stolen data.
With over 740 million users, LinkedIn is a widely used platform, and the company is immediately in damage control mode given that almost two-thirds of its users’ data appears to have been compromised.
Also read - Personal Data Of 3.5 Million MobiKwik Users Hacked; Company Denies Claim
A spokesperson for LinkedIn said, “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.”
Facebook underwent a similar ordeal recently when the personal data of around 533 million of its users was leaked on a forum. The leak comprised of data from users from 106 countries with 6 million of them being from India. Facebook later said that the dataset had been breached due to a vulnerability that had been patched two years ago.
Read - Signal App Downloads In India Surge Ahead Of WhatsApp, Facebook And Instagram
Share
Tweet
