It seems that 2021 is the year of data breaches. We already have seen several major data hack instances in recent times with brands like Facebook, Air India, and Dominos being targeted by the attackers. In the latest, a massive LinkedIn data breach has grabbed the headlines. The latest hack is said to have compromised over 90 per cent of registered users. What is the exact case and what LinkedIn says about the data breach? Here's all you need to know:
LinkedIn Data Breach: What Is The Case?
The LinkedIn data breach has been first reported by RestorePrivacy. The report suggests the data breach has compromised the personal user data of 700 million users. Just for reference, LinkedIn currently has a user base of 756 million. With the aforementioned numbers, it is clear that this leak has affected over 90 percent of LinkedIn users.
An anonymous hacker attacked LinkedIn's server and got the personal details of the users. The leaked data is said to include physical addresses, geolocation data, phone numbers, and salaries. This is the second major data breach on LinkedIn's platforms this year. Back in April, over 500 million users data was breached which the company also confirmed.
What Does LinkedIn Say?
LinkedIn says no data breach has affected its services. In a statement given to Gadgets 360, the company suggested that the issue is being investigated and their initial analysis points to the leaked dataset include the information scraped via LinkedIn and the ones obtained from other sources. The company assures that this data breach hasn't leaked any private LinkedIn member's data.
Is Your LinkedIn Data Safe?
While LinkedIn officially denies any such data breach attack on its server, a separate report via 9to5Google confirms this attack. The publication cross-checked the leaked sample dataset from the Dark Web and has also reached out to the hacker directly.
The report shared by the publication suggests the hacker managed to exploit LinkedIn API's to get all the user details. As mentioned earlier, the leaked dataset includes email addresses, name and phone numbers, geolocation details, and physical addresses along with user profile links and username.
While the compromised data doesn't include passwords, the remaining information is also crucial in many other ways. You need to make sure that you use all the security protocols offered by the platform in addition to updating a stronger password to safeguard yourself from such attacks. While this is not a foolproof situation, it will keep your account protected from other attacks.