LinkedIn's 700 Million Users Data Is Available On Sale

Facebook’s record of database leak has been broken by LinkedIn. Just a few months back we saw Facebook’s database of 533 million users available for free on a forum. This time, it’s LinkedIn’s 700 million users database available on sale on the same forum.

LinkedIn’s 700 million users database has been leaked on a public forum known for database leaks. The user who started the thread, posted a sample of 1M records to prove that the data is real. It includes email addresses, names, phone numbers, physical addresses, Geolocation records, LinkedIn usernames & profile URLs, profile data such as user experience, genders, and other social media accounts.

Early in April, another user had posted a thread selling LinkedIn’s 500M databases. The database included users’ records from different countries as you can see in the screenshot below.

The latest thread was posted on June 21st by a different forum member. It is this thread that claims to have 700M LinkedIn users databases.

Microsoft on the data breach

It is one of the biggest data leaks. The leak contains 92% of the users’ data but Microsoft denies calling it a data breach. Technically, Microsoft is right. According to the hacker and Microsoft, the database was scraped through LinkedIn API. It was not stolen through a vulnerability but they exploited their API to scrape such a big amount of data.

Microsoft responded by saying that the thread posted on June 21st, contains the same data that was posted in April this year. The data was scraped through LinkedIn API and other websites, Microsoft added.

Members trust LinkedIn with their data, and any misuse of our members’ data, such as scraping, violates LinkedIn terms of service. When anyone tries to take member data and use it for purposes LinkedIn and our members haven’t agreed to, we work to stop them and hold them accountable.

Microsoft on the data leak

I think at the end of the day, as a LinkedIn user, the method of gaining 700M records does not matter. All that users should be worried about is their personal data will always be available online. Scammers and hackers would have started using this data to target us with their malicious campaigns.

Sadly, after a while, it is likely that somebody will post it online for free. We all know how it all happens. So be ready for more scam emails and phone calls.