Details of 700 million users put online for sale: LinkedIn denies any compromise of data

Media reports suggested that the data of over 92% LinkedIn users, that means over 700 million out of the 756 million users, has been put online for sale by a hacker.

Privacy Sharks reported that this data contains confidential information like the phone numbers, addresses, geolocation data, and inferred salaries of the users.

Though LinkedIn has denied this, the hacker had posted the data of around a million users online on June 22, the Money Control reported.

The company said, “Our teams have investigated a set of alleged LinkedIn data that has been posted for sale. We want to be clear that this is not a data breach and no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. Our initial investigation has found that this data was scraped from LinkedIn and other various websites and includes the same data reported earlier this year in our April 2021 scraping update.”

They added that LinkedIn members trust the company with their data. “When anyone tries to take LinkedIn member data and use it for purposes LinkedIn and our members haven’t agreed to, we work to stop them and hold them accountable.”

The company also posted a link to the page where it has listed prohibited software and extensions, and said that anyone who violates their terms of service can have their account restricted, reported Hindustan Times.