It’s something that most of us would never had thought of. Great networking options like LinkedIn becoming a tool for those who might want to go phishing for your personal information or worse, your identity. Using a technique known simply as “spear phishing“, the perpetrator can appear to become someone you think you may have once known or worked with.
What makes the idea of spear phishing so frightening is that the perpetrator may not even need to employ the use of a hidden URL. They may very well carry out the entire scam via the email thread and have enough info about you, to loop you into their web of deceit.
How could this potentially relate to LinkedIn? Simple, a bogus job offer. A scam artist, knowing your posted work history and then, crafting a clever cover story and then making it appear, that this ‘company’ is interested in hiring you. Think it would never happen? I myself, nearly fell for something like this thanks to a clever coverr story, a phone call and a real publication being referenced. The guy who nearly nailed me knew that I receive job offers via email the time. They also knew that I often accept jobs without meeting face to face. A mistake that has since changed, this fact alone was enough to get me to a point of being VERY close to divulging certain info.
What perhaps saved me was a gut feeling that something was just not right. The type of contract that I was asked to sign was requesting info that made no sense to me. My social, full name, and other unneeded personal information. It was actually that contract that made me suspicious in the first place. Had this guy simply had waited and used legal, government tax forms to request my social security number, amongst other data, I would have never been the wiser.
Think you would never fall for this, don’t be so sure. These scam artists are becoming more clever with every scheme. And when you have someone contacting you, knowing people you know and promising something grounded, feasible as you happen to be in the market for it anyway, chances are excellent you will fall for it. So if you use services like LinkedIn, be paranoid and triple check sources before trusting anyone!
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