Cyber experts at Cyberint spotted an ongoing and successful hacking campaign targeting LinkedIn accounts, resulting in victims losing access and facing ransom demands or account deletion. Compromised LinkedIn accounts can be used for social engineering, blackmail, data gathering, and reputational damage.
Diving into details
Numerous LinkedIn users have expressed their frustrations regarding instances of unauthorized access or being locked out of their accounts, and they have also encountered difficulty in resolving these issues through LinkedIn's customer support.
- The attackers seem to be exploiting leaked login information or using brute-force methods to try and commandeer a significant number of LinkedIn accounts.
- Upon successfully compromising inadequately secured LinkedIn accounts, the hackers expeditiously change the linked email address to one associated with the "rambler[.]ru" service.
In some instances, individuals have been coerced into making ransom payments to regain access, or they've been threatened with the permanent removal of their accounts.
Why this matters
In the past few months, according to Google Trends, there’s been a 5000% increase in searches related to LinkedIn account hacks and recovery.
- While the campaign's intent remains unclear, the compromised professional profiles on LinkedIn carry concerning implications.
- Malicious actors could exploit these compromised profiles, deceiving others into harmful actions under the guise of trusted colleagues or superiors. Blackmail cases have emerged, coercing victims into payments for the attackers' gain.
- Moreover, valuable data exchanged in LinkedIn conversations could be exploited by threat actors for information gathering.
In conclusion
The active hacking campaign targeting LinkedIn accounts highlights the urgency of addressing this threat. It could lead to further exploitation of users via social engineering, sensitive data extraction, and reputational damage. Users are urged to adopt proactive measures to effectively fortify their LinkedIn accounts against malicious attacks.
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