Each quarter, KnowBe4 reviews its data to determine the top-clicked phishing emails by subject lines pertaining to social media, general subjects and “In the Wild.” This process revealed that more than half of all social media-related phishing emails sent out in Q2 2019 masqueraded as LinkedIn messages, thereby furthering a trend that’s been growing quarter over quarter for some time now. These types of campaigns are more common than one might think. When clicked, the URL redirected the recipient to a phishing page designed to steal their Google credentials. In one phishing attack detected by Malwarebytes, for instance, bad actors used compromised accounts of other LinkedIn members, including trusted users, to send out in-platform messages urging recipients to click on a link in order to view a Google Doc. Not all scammers leverage fake job offers to steal LinkedIn users’ information. Reputable job-search sites such as FlexJobs and are a better avenue for finding real, paying work. Given the variety of fake jobs targeting LinkedIn members, it’s important that users exercise caution if they are offered a job over an in-platform message. When the user completes these steps, however, the job never materializes, and the scammers make off with the user’s data and/or payment. These messages contain links that redirect users to websites that ask them to fill out an application, upload their resume, provide some sensitive personal information such as their Social Security Number and/or pay upfront for a training program. As noted by Forbes, some scams use LinkedIn messages to offer jobs to unsuspecting users. Other fake jobs offered via LinkedIn never even get to that point. The victim thus decides to reach out to the “supervisor,” but in many cases, both the supervisor and payless job have already disappeared, which leaves the victim with no recourse. When payday comes around, there’s no paycheck to be found. To assuage their target’s skepticism, the fraudster commonly says that the offer is 100% legitimate. This type of offer comes off sounding too good to be true for many users.
The spammer outlines the details of a high-paying job and tells the user that they can perform its duties from anywhere with an Internet connection. In this type of scheme, users receive a LinkedIn message from someone claiming to be a job recruiter. If they receive an e-mail invitation to connect with another LinkedIn member, they should log into their accounts and review their connection requests there. Users should always be careful when clicking on suspicious links in their emails. This location ultimately redirected a user to Google’s home page after a few seconds, but in the background, it installed a sample of the ZeuS information stealer family. In their attack emails, bad actors used spam messages targeting LinkedIn to redirect recipients to a malicious website. That’s exactly what happened in a scam campaign detected by KnowBe4. In others, they’ll send more generic LinkedIn invitations to distribute malware. In some, fraudsters may claim that they’re romantically interested in the recipient. These types of requests may take on one of several different forms. Indeed, one of the most common ruses on LinkedIn is when a user receives a fake connection invite email from another member. Like on any social media platform, the act of connecting with another LinkedIn user creates ample room for malicious activity. (These ploys are not ranked but simply listed in random order.) Scam #1: Illegitimate Contact Requests
Here are five ruses, in particular, that should be on their radar.
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They’re also known to stalk users on LinkedIn where connections carry greater professional gravity.įortunately, users can stay alert of such activity by familiarizing themselves with the most common types of LinkedIn scams. Even so, digital criminals don’t stop with just those two platforms. The fact that scammers haunt Facebook and Twitter is not surprising.
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