According to security solutions company Symantec, LinkedIn is a prime target for scammers looking to connect with professionals across a variety of industries, including information security and oil and gas. Scammers copy information from real LinkedIn profiles to pose as recruiters and attract new connections.
Symantec says most of these fake accounts followed a specific pattern. They bill themselves as recruiters for fake firms or are supposedly self-employed and primarily use photos of women pulled from stock image sites or of real professionals. The scammers copy text from profiles of real professionals and keyword-stuff their profile for visibility in search results.
Symantec said the primary goal of these fake LinkedIn accounts is to map out the networks of business professionals. In addition to mapping connections, scammers can also scrape contact information from their connections, including personal and professional e-mail addresses as well as phone numbers. This information could be used to send spear-phishing e-mails.
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