New LinkedIn breach exposes data of 700 Million users

A new massive LinkedIn breach made the headlines, the leak reportedly exposes the data of 700M users, more than 92% of the total 756M users.

A new massive LinkedIn breach made the headlines, a database containing data of 700M users, more than 92% of the total 756M users, is available for sale on forums on the dark web.

The exposed records include email addresses full names, phone numbers, physical addresses, geolocation records, LinkedIn username and profile URL, personal and professional experience/background, genders, and other social media accounts and usernames. Passwords are not included in the archive.

The threat actor that is offering for sale the data shared a sample of 1M records as proof of the authenticity of the archive. According to media that analyzed the data were able to confirm that they are genuine and up-to-date.

According to the RestorePrivacy website, the threat actor abused the official LinkedIn API to download the data

“We reached out directly to the user who is posting the data up for sale on the hacking forum. He claims the data was obtained by exploiting the LinkedIn API to harvest information that people upload to the site.” reported RestorePrivacy.

Data available for sale exposes 700+ million people at risk of cybercriminal activities, including identity theft, phishing and social engineering attacks, and account hijacking.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, LinkedIn)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.