LinkedIn Accounts Hacked & Ransomed

Uploaded on 2023-08-22 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Social Media, TECHNOLOGY--Hackers, FREE TO VIEW

A widespread malicious hacking campaign has seen many LinkedIn users locked out of their accounts worldwide. While LinkedIn has not yet issued an official announcement, it appears that their support response time has lengthened, with reports of a high volume of support requests. 

After the attacks, some victims are pressured to pay a ransom to regain control of their accounts or face permanent deletion and threatened with permanent account deletion, according to a report from Cyberint,

In other instances, LinkedIn users report that they have received notification emails from LinkedIn telling them that their accounts have been temporarily locked due to "unusual activity". 

Analysis of Google Trends reveals a significant surge, of 5000%, in the past 90 days in the volume of searches related to hacked account campaigns on LinkedIn. There has also been a marked increase not just in conversations about hacked accounts on social media, but also in the frequency of searches for LinkedIn support regarding recommended actions when an account is compromised, Cyberint reported

Some LinkedIn users report that they have received notification emails from LinkedIn telling them that their accounts have been temporarily locked due to "unusual activity". These appear to be a precautionary step from the site, when they see multiple attempts to break into an account, perhaps through the use of brute force password attacks or due to multiple attempts to defeat the two-factor authentication (2FA) protection some users have enabled on accounts.

Victims have turned to social media in their attempts to regain access to their accounts, complaining about a lack of meaningful response from LinkedIn's support team.

The security problem is clearly not limited to just the LinkedIn users complaining online. Researchers found that the number of Google searches related to compromised LinkedIn accounts has seen a "significant surge" in the past 90 days. Search terms like "Linkedin account recovery appeal" and "Linkedin account hacked 2023" have been classified as a "breakout", meaning that searches for the term have grown by over 5000%. 

So, what should you do if you're worried that your LinkedIn account might be the next to be hijacked by cyber criminals? The advice to users is:

  •  Ensure that you have a strong, hard-to-crack, unique password protecting your LinkedIn account.
  • Enable 2-factor authentication on your LinkedIn account to provide an additional layer of defence if your password has been compromised. LinkedIn appears to offer both app-based 2FA and SMS-based 2FA. My preference is not to use SMS-based 2FA because of the problem of SIM swap attacks, but frankly any 2FA is better than no 2FA at all.
  • Check your LinkedIn account's settings to ensure that it is associated with an email address that you regularly check - you don't want to miss any legitimate communication from the company telling you that someone else has added their email address to your LinkedIn profile.  

LinkedIn is no stranger to being a target for cybercriminals In 2022, the platform was called the most abused brand in phishing attempts, likely due to its widespread use in the corporate and education sectors. 

In June the North Korean APT Lazarus was spotted using fake LinkedIn profiles to target security researchers in a phishing campaign. In another spear-phishing campaign discovered last July, attackers targeted LinkedIn as part of an effort to take over Facebook Business accounts to run malvertising exploits.

Cyberint:       LinkedIn:     Tripwire:    Dark Reading:    HelpNetSecurity:     The Hindu:      Image: Greg Bulla

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