LinkedIn Takes Action to Tackle Fake Actions
Why the fuss?
Fake accounts are an issue because they can spread misinformation as well as disinformation (there is a real difference!), they can scam others, they can be used to troll or spam others, they can impersonate someone or an organization and denigrate their reputation. For social media platforms, it is an issue because fake accounts mess with the algorithms, which means that certain accounts can get a lot of likes or interactions that are not legitimate and so get boosted to prominence without legitimate followers.
In light of this, LinkedIn is introducing new verification features over the coming months to help tackle fake accounts. You and your employees presumably are on LinkedIn, since it’s a business-focused social media platform that is a fantastic place to connect with like-minded businesspeople and find new employees or opportunities. Thanks to this popularity, however, we’re seeing an increase in fake account profiles, created by scammers for more sinister purposes.
Not only that, but scammers and bad actors now readily have available AI, which can impact social media platforms with bot accounts. Bot accounts are automated accounts that annoy, troll, or clog up systems, and can cause some real damage, whether in terms of reputation or finances. With bot accounts on LinkedIn, people are getting spammed, tricked into downloading malware and giving away personal data.
LinkedIn holds a huge amount of valuable data and information on each of its members, such as their job history, contact details, professional interests, and places of work – all of which is valuable data that a determined criminal or bad actor could put to use.
How to spot fake accounts
These fake accounts can be hard to spot: they look like real people who seem to work for legitimate businesses. Sometimes, the account pictures are generated by deepfake technology, so that the profiles are carefully curated to look like the real deal.
You can spot these accounts and safeguard yourself with a few quick questions:
- Do details seem blurry or obscure?
- Does the lighting look unnatural?
- Do words or sounds not match up with visuals?
- Does the source seem reliable?
A few ways to double check whether a source, as a LinkedIn profile, is reliable or legitimate are by
- Doing a quick reverse image search to see where the original image came from and if it seems like it would have been posted by that person for that purpose.
- Assessing whether the connections of the profile in question seem like ones that the person would connect with.
- Seeing whether the connections of the profile in question are connected with the “correct” connections of other personnel (you might know) from their organization.
- Doing a quick internet search to see if anyone else has had questions about the given profile in question.
- Assessing whether the language/grammar is expected of the person in the given profile.
LinkedIn is making changes!
LinkedIn is making changes over the coming months to help tackle these fake accounts, by way of an improved account authentication process.
Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, is partnering with secure identity platform CLEAR to help verify accounts using work email addresses, government-issued ID, and a phone number. Once the relevant information has been provided, accounts will receive a verification mark, like the ones introduced by Twitter. Unlike Twitter, however, LinkedIn will be offering verification free of charge.
You Need Security!
For your work on LinkedIn, as well as anywhere else in this digital cyberworld we now call life, you need secure IT. Unfortunately, it would require you to work full-time as an IT director, technician/engineer, and/or computer systems analyst. It would also cost you a pretty penny, let alone time and energy, to implement all the necessary requirements for secure IT.
Thankfully, we are here! We will secure you and guide you in the process with training and development on how to be tech savvy. We will support you and service your organization, so that you can do what you do best in your line of work: run your business!
Sourced with permission from Your Tech Updates.