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The data of over 92 per cent of LinkedIn users have been stolen by a hacker and put up for sale over the internet, according to a news report by privacysharks.com. The report suggests that the data leaked includes sensitive information like names, phone numbers, gender and industry information of over 700 million LinkedIn users.
The claim of being in possession of the data was posted by the hacker on June 22 on a hacking forum called RaidForums, privacysharks.com found in its investigation. The hacker also included data of over 1 million LinkedIn profiles as a sample to prove the data leak.
However, LinkedIn has refuted the allegations that the private data of its users was leaked to hackers. Initial investigation suggests that the leaked data was ‘scraped’ from Linkedin and some other websites, the company said in a press statement. It “includes the same data reported earlier this year in our April 2021 scarping update,” LinkedIn added.
Reports of a new alleged data leak have emerged only 2 months after data from 500 million accounts of the professional social media platform was put up for sale in April 2021. The data was available in 4 parts and a sample of 2 million user’s data could be accessed for $2 credits of the hacking forum. However, LinkedIn had maintained then that no private data had been leaked.