LinkedIn phishing scams are nothing new, but attackers are trying a new strategy. Now, phishing comments are invading users’ feeds. They’ve already proven effective, but knowing what to watch for will help keep you safe.
The last thing to worry about when reading LinkedIn comments is whether they’re trying to steal your information. You should be more focused on having engaging conversations and networking.
Instead, scammers have made everyone spend a little more time looking at comments, wondering if they’re real or just another LinkedIn phishing scam.
The comments seem real enough, which is what makes them highly effective. Scammers are posing as LinkedIn moderation bots. They issue warnings about your account in comment on your post. You’re asked to take action immediately due to a policy violation or you may have your account locked.
Click the provided link and you’re taken to an official looking LinkedIn screen asking for your login details and other personal information. I hate to tell you, but that’s not LinkedIn. It’s a fake site stealing all your information.
It’s easy to believe the comments. Unlike many phishing scams, you won’t find obvious grammatical mistakes. They also feature trusted LinkedIn branding and even use shortened links in LinkedIn’s “lnkd.in” format.
When you’re worried your account is suddenly being locked, you act without thinking twice, especially when the comment seems to come directly from LinkedIn. What’s making the entire scam worse is the scammers are using AI to send comments on a wider scale, all while maintaining an official look and feel to deceive users.
Scammers Using Linked Very Identity
Currently, most of the scam accounts go by Linked Very. LinkedIn user Mark O showed how the scam appeared in his LinkedIn comments.
The comment links to a separate page that looks exactly like any other LinkedIn page. There are other versions of this same comment, but you get the idea.
Scammers are highly likely to change to a different profile name now that Linked Very is being actively reported as scam by users.
However, if you see this profile name, don’t click any links from them. Also, report the profile to LinkedIn. Click the profile name to open the profile, click the More button, and click Report / Block. The more scam profiles you help block, the safer it is for everyone. Even if it’s not a phishing scam, you can still block users posting irrelevant comments.
LinkedIn needs users to report these phishing comments and profiles so they can remove them. Currently, LinkedIn is actively removing suspicious profiles matching this scam.
Check Profile Details
If you’re not sure if the alarming comment about your account violating policies is real, check the profile. Don’t click the link in the comment. Instead, click the profile name itself.
Official LinkedIn support pages have followers. For instance, the LinkedIn Help profile for LinkedIn’s support team has 7,000 followers. Scam profiles usually have a whopping zero followers. If they’re lucky, they might get a few followers. This is a huge red flag. No followers mean it’s not legitimate.
While new or less active users might not have complete profiles, official LinkedIn support pages always have complete profiles. And, if scammers switch tactics, you should still avoid clicking any links from users with incredibly sparse profiles and zero followers.
LinkedIn never has and will never warn you about policy violations in public comments. You’ll receive an email to the account you registered with. This explains the violation and what your next steps are. Yes, there are LinkedIn phishing emails too, but I recommend not clicking links in your emails either. Just log directly into LinkedIn and proceed from there.
If you’re suspicious, log into LinkedIn directly. You should also have a direct message from LinkedIn about the violation. If you have both of these, it’s an official communication.
You can always message LinkedIn directly if you’re still uncertain. Go directly to LinkedIn’s contact page to either chat live or create a support ticket.
Avoid Providing Login Details
LinkedIn won’t ask you to verify your login details. After all, if you’re reading the comment on LinkedIn, you’re already logged in. If you’re taken to another page to log in yet again, don’t do it.
In some cases, you may be asked to verify your password when making certain changes to your account. This is normal.
Otherwise, LinkedIn already recognizes you’re logged in and lets you proceed to the correct form to appeal a violation.
See if Your Account is Locked
The LinkedIn phishing scam uses the scare tactic of supposedly locking your account. It’s easy to verify this.
Log out of LinkedIn and log back in. If you can and you don’t see an email or direct message from LinkedIn, your account isn’t locked and the comment is spam.
Verify Shortened Links
If LinkedIn was actually commenting with a link, it’d definitely be an official linkedin.com or lnkd.in shortened link. Some of the LinkedIn phishing comments do use these, though.
All that means is you need to take an extra step to verify the link. Use a tool to show the full link. I prefer using either Expand URL or Unshorten.It. Copy the link into either tool, give it a few seconds, and it shows you where the link leads.
Even if you see a full link, run it through urlscan.io. This not only shows you where it leads, but checks to see if it’s a malicious or phishing site. For example, I used one of the phishing links LinkedIn users had shared from their comments. The tool flagged it as malicious:
The rule to remember is never click a link if you don’t trust the user. If you’re suspicious at all, don’t do it. It’s not worth risking your identity for. Just avoid suspicious users and comments. And, after you get done blocking any scammers, try these methods to make your LinkedIn feed more relevant.
