How Safe is LinkedIn? Be Aware What You Share

LinkedIn is a popular social networking site used for professional business connections, job searching, and hiring. Because of this, people are much more willing to share their personal information on this site, specifically surrounding their current role and job history. Cyber criminals can gather information from your LinkedIn profile to use in targeted phishing attacks against you, known as spear phishing. New employees are particularly susceptible on LinkedIn. In our firm, a new employee recently posted about their new job on LinkedIn and within 48 hours they received a spear phishing email. 

LinkedIn have a Sales Navigator feature called LinkedIn Smart Links, which companies can use to provide tracking information on who access the links. However, cyber criminals have been abusing this system in phishing messages to bypass security features and provide malicious links to their targets. Cyber security firm Cofense detected a recent phishing campaign utilising these links, which they have identified as a resurgence of this cyber attack type, first seen in late 2022. Identifying and reporting all suspected phishing attempts is the best way to protect yourself at home and at work. When using an email reading programme such as Outlook, or when accessing emails online such as through Gmail, you can report phishing messages directly. This is done by opening the (…) menu when you have the phishing message open and click the ‘Report Phishing’ option. 

Want to know more? Check out the full blog on this topic on our main site: https://www.cool-waters.co.uk/blog/how-safe-is-linkedin-be-aware-what-you-sharenbsp