Staying Safe Online: Securing Your LinkedIn Account
As part of our ongoing Staying Safe Online series, we want to provide a clear guide for those looking to make their online presence a little more secure. As people continue to share more information about their lives online, these pieces of information can be exactly what a hacker or scammer is looking for. From providing helpful clues during Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering expedition, giving a list of your friends and followers right to a scammer, improperly secured LinkedIn accounts can be a treasure trove of information, and be used by hackers to craft targeted phishing campaigns.
Our friends over at Studio Sec put together a quick walkthrough on how to improve your LinkedIn account security right from your mobile device.
Securing Your LinkedIn Account from Your Desktop/Laptop
1. Login into your LinkedIn account.
2. Select your profile picture from the top right corner and select the Settings & Privacy option from the drop-down list.
3. From the Settings menu, select Sign In & Security
4. Within the Sign In & Security area you can customize your login options
Currently, the available sign in settings include the following:
Change Password - The option to change your password to something that is strong and not easily guessable (it is recommended that you use a password manager to ensure that you don’t reuse the same password across multiple websites and accounts)
Where you’re Signed In - View a list of locations where you’re currently logged into the platform. This information includes the approximate location, device, IP address, and when it was last online.
Two-Step Verification - The ability to setup a secondary form of login approval that will be requested if an unrecognized device or browser tries to access your account.
5. From the menu, select Visibility, where you can customize the ability for others to view your profile, network, and LinkedIn activity
The Visibility menu offers ability to configure visibility options including the following:
Profile Viewing - Select what others see when viewing your profile
Your full name, picture, and headline
A generalized characteristic overview of your profile
Full private mode
The ability to customize who can see your email address, from only yourself, 2nd and/or 1st degree connections, or anyone on the platform
The ability for others to view your connections
The ability for others to view your profile outside of the LinkedIn platform
The ability for others to find your profile via your email address or phone number
The ability to customize who can share your profile updates, mention you, or tag you
The ability for others to see your current active status
Securing Your LinkedIn Account from a Mobile Device
Launch the LinkedIn app on your mobile device and select your profile picture from the top left corner
2. From your menu select the Settings option.
3. Scroll through the Settings menu and select the Sign In & Security
4. Within the Sign In & Security area you can customize your login options
Currently, the available sign in settings include the following:
Change Password - The option to change your password to something that is strong and not easily guessable (it is recommended that you use a password manager to ensure that you don’t reuse the same password across multiple websites and accounts)
Where you’re Signed In - View a list of locations where you’re currently logged into the platform. This information includes the approximate location, device, IP address, and when it was last online.
Two-Step Verification - The ability to setup a secondary form of login approval that will be requested if an unrecognized device or browser tries to access your account.
5. From the menu, select Visibility, where you can customize the ability for others to view your profile, network, and LinkedIn activity
The Visibility menu offers ability to configure visibility options including the following:
Profile Viewing - Select what others see when viewing your profile
Your full name, picture, and headline
A generalized characteristic overview of your profile
Full private mode
The ability to customize who can see your email address, from only yourself, 2nd and/or 1st degree connections, or anyone on the platform
The ability for others to view your connections
The ability for others to view your profile outside of the LinkedIn platform
The ability for others to find your profile via your email address or phone number
The ability to customize who can share your profile updates, mention you, or tag you
The ability for others to see your current active status
Now What?
After walking through the steps to secure your LinkedIn account, it is still important that you remain aware of what you’re posting and who you are connected with. Malicious actors such as scammers and hackers will often create fake profiles and try to connect with you in order to learn as much as they can about you and your connections. By following the guide above as well as being more aware of what information you put online, you can stay safe online and limit your chances of falling victim to an online attacker. Be wary of accounts that have a large number of connections that have little to no posts and no profile picture as this can often indicate an in-authentic/bot account.
If you have other social media accounts, make sure to check out our other Staying Safe Online guides as we walk through how to secure your accounts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and more!