More than half the businesses around the world experienced LinkedIn scams in the past year- a testament to the rising number of fake job offers and phishing cons on the platform. As many as 56 per cent of firms globally encountered at least one LinkedIn scam in the past 12 months.
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According to a report by network security solution provider NordLayer, a fake job offer remained the most popular scam, making up as many as 48 per cent of the total frauds on LinkedIn. The leading outcome due to such occurences was a damaged reputation, IANS reported.
“The primary function of LinkedIn— building a career— introduces one of the most common LinkedIn scams, fake job offers. With 117 job applications submitted per second on the platform, fraudsters have an ideal environment for creating a legitimate-looking job posting to collect personal information or money,” IANS quoted the report as saying.
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It highlighted another common scam: LinkedIn phishing. This happens when an actor uses a fake profile to pretend to be a well-known company or professional. This fraudster uses such a profile to send unsolicited messages or emails that fish for sensitive information.
A link shared in this manner could also contain malicious content. These links can land up in the victim’s inbox under the guise of someone forming a connection to start a conversation about professional developments.
Another category of scams happen on a company level. Here, fraudsters operate under false organisation pretexts or impersonate an existing company to build more credibility.
Findings suggest that as many as 45 per cent of businesses are aware of a scam on LinkedIn using their organisation’s brand name.
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Small companies faring better
It is interesting to note that the least active scam outreach was noticed in small companies. Here, 52 per cent of respondents confirmed that no one in their organisation had gone through such an experience.
“Fewer organisations with LinkedIn company profiles can explain such deviation from general tendency. The rest of the respondents (47 per cent) indicated their organisation employees are likely to be engaged in a scheme,” said the report.
