LinkedIn: dataset of 500 million users for sale has been scrapped

A popular hacker forum offers the data of 500 million LinkedIn users, which, according to LinkedIn, was obtained through scraping. According to the platform, this is publicly available data and there is no question of a data breach.

The hacker claims to have the data of 520 million LinkedIn users and 500 million ‘other data’. The dataset contains the first and last names of users, the place of residence and country, e-mail address, current work position, where they have worked in the past and what diplomas they have. An example set refers to telephone numbers, although this field is empty in the example set. It is not known how much the hacker wants for the dataset, although his post previously stated that he wanted at least a thousand dollars for it.

In a response, LinkedIn states that it has looked at the data and concluded that the data comes from multiple websites and companies. Among the information is ‘publicly readable user data’ that has apparently been scraped from the platform. LinkedIn denies that there is a data breach and emphasizes that there is no LinkedIn private data in the dataset. Scraping data is against LinkedIn’s terms and conditions and the company says it wants to stop this form of data collection. It is not clear whether LinkedIn will actively warn users; Earlier this week, Facebook said it would not do this for a comparable data set.

The Italian privacy watchdog Il Garante per la protezione dei dati personali says it is starting an investigation into the data breach. The watchdog also warns people who want to buy the file that possessing this personal information is likely illegal. LinkedIn users are also asked to watch out for irregularities with the phone number and their LinkedIn account.