Fake LinkedIn users want you to add them to your professional network.
LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically designed for the business community. The goal of LinkedIn is to establish a network to other business people. Over the last year there has been an alarming growth in the number of incidents involving fake LinkedIn accounts trying to steal information from people they connect with. Symantec has worked with LinkedIn to take down some these fake accounts.With over 400 million users LinkedIn is a prime target for scammers.
Most of these fake LinkedIn users follow a specific pattern:
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They list themselves as recruiters for fake firms or are supposedly self employed.
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They usually pose as women by using photos pulled from stock image sites or from real professionals.
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They copy text from profiles of real people and paste it into their own profile.
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They use keywords like "recruiter", in their profile so that it pops up in more search results.
Posing as recruiters, these fake LinkedIn accounts have an easy entry point into the networks of real people. It has been observed that the text used in these fake LinkedIn accounts were usually lifted verbatim (although sometimes modified) from real people.
After they establish a connection with a user, they usually sell personal information of that user, such as personal and professional email addresses and phone numbers.
LinkedIn users should be sceptical of who they add to their network as sometimes these fake users have received endorsements from real users. Not to worry too much though as there are a few ways to identify fake users on LinkedIn.
- Do a reverse-image search ( tineye.com offers a browser plugin)
- Copy and paste profile information into a search engine to locate real profiles that a fake user could be using.
If you ever suspect a fake LinkedIn user, you can report it here.
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 "dnaTechLaunch, LinkedIn, Symantec, Fake accounts")
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