Data for some 700 million LinkedIn users is for sale online, just two months after another major dataset was up for sale.
According to LinkedIn, the platform has some 756 million members. As a result, the latest dataset represents roughly 92% of all users. The hacker selling the information says an API was exploited to harvest the data, according to RestorePrivacy.
LinkedIn has responded, saying the information was scraped, and that no data breach occurred.
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.
The data includes a significant amount of information, including LinkedIn usernames, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, gender, experience and background, geolocation records and social media accounts/usernames.
Regardless of how the data was collected, the implications are enormous with 92% of LinkedIn users now vulnerable to spam campaigns and identity theft.