LinkedIn Suffered Ransomware Attack With Loss Of Data And Ransom Demand
LinkedIn suffered a concurrent ransomware attack, leaving many users locked out of their accounts. The threat actors requested ransom payments to release control of these accounts, the report says.
In August, many users lost access to their accounts. In response, experts in cybersecurity determined that the trigger for the breach was not a leak in the system, but incorrect behavior of users. They also asserted that the purpose of the attack was to exploit data from other breaches. It was an attempt to see if LinkedIn users had reused usernames and passwords.
According to a statement, the concurrent attacks on LinkedIn highlight a fundamental fact: hackers consistently target what people hold dear, hackers value professional social media platforms like LinkedIn.
Arguably, in addition to the loss of access to professional accounts, loss of digital presence is not the only thing, as users risk damaging built reputations and potential future revenue.
How to protect your LinkedIn account
Today, many users are not paying enough attention to how social media platforms and other applications can impact their privacy and security, leading to improper decisions about online presence.
To combat this, they advise users to use strong complex passwords, preferably a minimum of 12 characters including uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
According to Hive Systems, threat actors will need 226 years to brute force unguessable passwords, leading to the security and safety of social business accounts.
However, passwords with 6 characters despite having numbers, different case letters, and special characters can be hacked with sufficient hacking brute force.
Additionally, users should enable two-factor authentication, either through SMS or an authenticator app, to avoid hackers breaching into their account.
Sharma noted, We witnessed an especially scary trend in the recent hijackings wherein attackers changed the account password then proceeded to enable two-factor authentication, making it impossible for the original user to retrieve their account.