Aug 16, 2023 11:01:00

Reported that the takeover damage of the LinkedIn account has exploded and the support center is in a punctured state, and the report of the complete deletion of the victim account and the ransom demand

Security company Cyberint announced that many accounts on LinkedIn, a business-specific SNS, have been locked due to security problems or hijacked by attackers. LinkedIn has not made this matter public, but it has been pointed out that the magnitude of the damage can be seen from the fact that Google searches related to hacking damage have surged 50 times in the past few months.

LinkedIn Accounts Under Attack

https://cyberint.com/blog/research/linkedin-accounts-under-attack-how-to-protect-yourself/

LinkedIn accounts hacked in widespread hijacking campaign
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/linkedin-accounts-hacked-in-widespread-hijacking-campaign/

Cyberint said in a statement on August 14th, 'Over the past few weeks, our research team has observed a serious and consistent pattern of successful hacking campaigns targeting LinkedIn accounts. 'This campaign is affecting individuals around the world, and a significant number of victims have lost access to their accounts.'

Some victims are holding their accounts hostage and demanding a ransom, while others are facing permanent deletion of their accounts. LinkedIn hasn't made an official announcement yet, but the high volume of complaints has led to slow support response times, with many users taking to social media to express their frustration.

The attacks on LinkedIn accounts are consistent, but the results are bifurcated. In relatively minor cases, the victim's profile will be temporarily locked and they will be notified via their official LinkedIn email address. In this case, your account has not yet been compromised, but an attacker may have attempted to compromise your account through two-factor authentication or

brute force your password, which caused your profile to be locked. Ta.

In more severe cases, attackers can take over a LinkedIn account completely, changing the email address and password associated with the account, making it impossible for the victim to recover the account. . After that, the victim may be asked for a ransom of tens of dollars (thousands of yen), or the account may be deleted completely.

The following writing shows that the email of the victim's LinkedIn account has been changed to that of the Russian email service Rambler.

BleepingComputer, an IT news site that covered this issue,

posted on X (formerly Twitter), posted on a bulletin board-type social news site, Reddit threads , asked questions on Microsoft forums, etc. LinkedIn users' accounts were hacked. reported that it is suing

One Reddit user said of LinkedIn's response, ``My account was hacked six days ago. reported that my account was hacked, verified my identity, and sent a DM to LinkedIn's help center on Twitter, but I haven't heard anything.

Below is the evolution of Google Trends for search terms such as 'Linkedin hacked'. According to Cyberint, the number of searches for hacked damage and recovery of LinkedIn accounts has increased by 5000% in the past few months.

Cyberint encourages LinkedIn users to log in and verify that all profile information is genuine, and to contact LinkedIn support immediately if your account is locked.

It is also recommended to use unique and strong passwords to prevent damage, not to reuse passwords from other sites, and to enable two-factor authentication.

BleepingComputer contacted LinkedIn and requested a comment, but said that no response had been received at the time of writing the article.