Stolen LinkedIn data used in phishing attacks

When large amounts of account credentials are dumped online, hacking into user accounts is not the just concern that emerges. Following the massive LinkedIn dataset that hacker sold in the dark web sharing account details of over 117 million users, at that place has been an increase in the cases of identity theft and phishing attacks.

Stolen LinkedIn data used in phishing emails in holland

The first thing we do after a major website is breached and its data leaked, is to change our passwords. But, what about our email addresses, usernames and IP addresses, along with other personal information that may exist associated with our accounts, depending on the service that we are using. Apart from taking over accounts, there is more business in the malicious campaigns that are designed to corruption this data to spread malware on a large scale.

Following the LinkedIn leak, cybercriminals are using the data associated with public LinkedIn profiles to target victims. The German federal CERT (CERT-BUND) warned on Twitter that phishing emails written in Dutch, containing fake invoices as Give-and-take documents are being sent to the receivers, conveying their names and business organization roles. "The names and business positions in these emails were associated with the LinkedIn leak, existence consistent with public LinkedIn profiles," SecurityWeek reported, quoting CERT.

Data previously unreachable, has at present get bachelor

These phishing emails address the recipient past their full name, chore title and visitor name, making them expect more than convincing. "With the LinkedIn leak, information has become bachelor that wasn't reachable by simple screen scrapers (or API users) in the past," Johannes Ullrich noted in a post on ICS SANS.

Yesterday, the German federal CERT (CERT-BUND) warned of phishing e-mails that are more than plausible by using data that appears to originate from the recently leaked LinkedIn information set. The e-mail address the recipient by total proper noun and task title. Typically, the attachments claim to contain an invoice.

Not merely are these emails using specific recipient information, but the attached Word document is also based on personal data, making it hard to take them as malware. Researchers have said that attackers have packed these attachments with malicious macros in an endeavor to trick users into enabling them. These macros then pave way for the Zeus Panda banking trojan.

Some other security firm Fox Information technology also observed malicious emails being delivered to users in the Netherlands. Phishing emails started to appear "in large quantities on June 7, with the outset name, last proper noun, role, and company name of the recipient being taken from the user's LinkedIn page."

The house has advised the recipients who accept opened the Give-and-take attachments to consider scanning their computers with anti-virus programs.