Hackers Leaks Scraped LinkedIn Data of 35 Million Users

Threat actors have recently leaked personal information of over 35 million online users, by illicitly accessing a LinkedIn database. Apparently, the hackers are operating under the name ‘USDOD.’

The database, on the other hand, has been released in a popular cybercrime forum, Breach Forums.

It is significant to note that USDoD is the same hacker who compromised the FBI’s InfraGard security platform last year, revealing 87,000 members’ personal information.

In a post on Breach Forums, the hacker verified that web scraping was used to access the most recent LinkedIn information. Web scraping is a software-driven, automated process that extracts data from websites, usually with the purpose of obtaining certain information from web pages.

As revealed by Hackread, the leaked data included publicly available information regarding the victims’ LinkedIn profiles, such as full names and profile bios. While this data also contains millions of email addresses, the hackers could not get hold of the passwords.

Email addresses from senior US government officials and organizations are exposed in the leak. Email addresses from other international government agencies have also been found.