LinkedIn user data leaked: Database shows emails, profile data, phones, full names, and more confidential info.
The same threat actor has leaked larger amounts of data from LinkedIn dated 2023. They claim this new data contains 35M lines and is 12 GB uncompressed.
Well, fuck. This was the ONE social media site that I put my data on, and that was out of necessity (job hunting). I know it's not the same, but this sort of feels like the Equifax breach.
I stopped using LinkedIn several years ago when it was turning into some hideous social media thing rather than just a place to keep an updated cv. I took a look at it six or so months ago and Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened?
It appears to now just be filled with people desperately trying to convince other people that they're an expert when in reality they're just talking to themselves and no one's really listening.
It's so stupid, but definitely can be helpful professionally to maintain a profile there. Depends on your experience and what field you're in, of course, but recruiters seem to use it a fair amount.
Definitely don't use it for the garbage social media aspect (it's like some weird crowd-sourced Chicken Soup for the Soul shit??) However, I've been convinced of its utility after getting a new job through a recruiter there without even looking. The process was sooo easy compared to applying for jobs the traditional way. Icing on the cake was that it came with a 50% raise and was for a position I would never have applied for on my own but I love it. Maybe it was lightning in a bottle, but I figure doesn't hurt to keep up a page just in case another good opportunity comes along. If nothing else, the recruiters I hear from give me a sense of how hot the market is and what kind of jobs my profile is pinging me for in case I want to make tweaks.
For sure, there's definitely utility to having one. I just got fed up with constantly getting pinged by recruiters that were clearly bots as well as all of the @ mentioning on said 'chicken soup for the soul' bullshit posts.
It still works as intended if you ignore all that and keep your head down. I get a fair amount of relevant offers and I got rather nice jobs through it over the last 15 years.
If it's any consolation, LinkedIn is notoriously terrible at this, so your data was probably out there as early as 2016 and almost certainly after 2021, when they managed to get hit with similar breaches twice in the same year.
And we share real background information, very specific details. This could lead them to our friends and colleagues!
But I'm not sure it can be called social media, though, but if you are looking for social media platforms that can avoids data leaks, and don't ask for your personal info when register, WireMin and Damus are both good choices.
Speaking of which, we should have a version of LinkedIn that is decentralized!
Now you shut your damn mouth, let's just let Linked In die like it was always supposed to. It's not some sort of positive networking platform, it's just a platform that reinforces the old boys club, with some cringey posts from people who are trying to hard.