LinkedIn can be a target for criminals

There are several ways in which criminals can get hold of a user’s personal information such as a mobile phone number or email address, the main one being through data leaks that have occurred on various websites that are sold among criminals.

But ESET, a proactive threat detection company, warns that without proper use Linkedin, one of the most used social networks today, is also a great source of information for cybercriminals.

“LinkedIn is typically used for professional purposes, with users trying to grow their network to get contacts or potential professional suggestions. With this in mind, many of its users set up their profiles to be responsive and full of contact information, and criminals will undoubtedly take advantage of this” , comments Camilo Gutiérrez Amaya, head of ESET’s Latin American Research Laboratory.

A criminal, without having to buy a list of leaked information, would only need to use one of the Web Crawlers (automated software that surfs the Internet in a methodical and automated way to index information about web pages and their content) for LinkedIn, and in this way collect all available contact information of your targets.