It has been reported that LinkedIn has been hit again with a security breach over the 4th of July weekend that exposed the data of 700 million users which, if proven true, would mean that 92% of the site’s users would have had their data compromised. Reports say that the data breached include phone numbers, physical addresses, geolocation data, and inferred salaries. LinkedIn denies that the data was breach and says in a statement:
“While we’re still investigating this issue, our initial analysis indicates that the dataset includes information scraped from LinkedIn as well as information obtained from other sources. This was not a LinkedIn data breach and our investigation has determined that no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. Scraping data from LinkedIn is a violation of our Terms of Service and we are constantly working to ensure our members’ privacy is protected.”
Security experts say the information has been posted for sale on the dark web. Among the data out there that’s been spotted by security experts:
- Email addresses
- Full names
- Phone numbers
- Physical addresses
- Geolocation records
- LinkedIn username and profile URL
- Personal and professional experience/background
- Genders
- Other social media accounts and usernames
LinkedIn said no passwords were stolen, but security experts there’s enough information out there for criminals to create a fake identity of a person.
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