Days after the Facebook user data leak, LinkedIn has fell victim to the data leak. User data of over 500 million LinkedIn users have been reportedly leaked on a popular hacking forum, reported CyberNews. The business job search company is very popular in India amongst professionals and businesses.
The data leaked data includes the name, workplace information, account ID, email, phone number, gender details, and links to social media accounts. Earlier, data of over 533 million Facebook users was compromised and put up for sale on a hacker forum.
Scrapped data has been put for sale on a popular hacking forum by an unknown user. Data of over 20 million profiles have been uploaded as a sample in four files. The sample data includes the name, email, address, phone numbers, work details, etc. The hacked has demanded Bitcoins in exchange for the breached data.
The popularity of LinkedIn could be understood by the massive user base. It is reported that over 740 million users have an account on the Microsoft-owned professional networking site. While there are over 170 million users from the US only, India is the second-largest in terms of the user base for LinkedIn with 71 million profiles. Over 55 million companies and organizations also have an account on LinkedIn.
What LinkedIn has to say?
LinkedIn has denied any data breach and explained that the data was possibly scrapped from the site. However, the data of private members is safe. The data available on the hacker forum seems to be an aggregation of data from many websites and organizations. Publically viewable data of the profiles has been scrapped from LinkedIn.
The company added that they are investigating the matter and will hold the culprits accountable for violating the terms of service.
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Security experts have expressed concerns over series of data leaks. The increase in remote work and personal devices for office work in recent days could also increase the risk of cyber attacks on companies by manipulating employee data.
