Security News > 2022 > October > LinkedIn's new security features combat fake profiles, threat actors

LinkedIn has introduced three new features to fight fake profiles and malicious use of the platform, including a new method to confirm whether a profile is authentic by showing whether it has a verified work email or phone number.

Over the past couple of years, LinkedIn has become heavily abused by threat actors to initiate communication with targets to distribute malware, perform cyberespionage, steal credentials, or conduct financial fraud.

More recently, Brian Krebs has been reporting on the massive number of fake LinkedIn profiles that are believed to be used for scams and other malicious purposes.

The first step to fighting fake accounts on LinkedIn is introducing a new "About this profile" section that gives users information like when the user created their profile, if the holder has verified their number, and if they linked a work email.

"Our new deep-learning-based model proactively checks profile photo uploads to determine if the image is AI-generated using cutting-edge technology designed to detect subtle image artifacts associated with the AI-based synthetic image generation process without performing facial recognition or biometric analyses." - LinkedIn.

Only time will tell if these safety features will prove adequate to stop bad actors from abusing LinkedIn, but the targeted measures the platform introduced should make hackers' operations much harder.

News URL

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/linkedins-new-security-features-combat-fake-profiles-threat-actors/