News

Data Of 700 Million LinkedIn Users Is For Sale On The Dark Web

Who would pay for this information, you wonder? Spammers, phishers, and other cybercriminals are definitely the target audience here.

Published

5 years ago

July 8, 2021

Joanna Melki

data of 700 million linkedin users is on sale for $5000 on the dark web

The security team at LinkedIn doesn’t get much rest lately. In April, 500 million of its user’s data was exposed by hackers, and the same data collection technique was apparently used by a dark web user called TomLiner, who is currently selling 700 million LinkedIn user records (92% of all LinkedIn users) in a convenient bundle for just $5,000.

The data collection technique in question is called scraping, which is the act of extracting useful information from a website. Since any public website can be scraped using readily available tools, it wouldn’t be correct to call this incident a breach, as LinkedIn quickly pointed out.

“While we’re still investigating this issue, our initial analysis indicates that the dataset includes information scraped from LinkedIn as well as information obtained from other sources,” said Leonna Spilman, Corporate Communications Manager at LinkedIn. “This was not a LinkedIn data breach, and our investigation has determined that no private LinkedIn member data was exposed.”

So, what data has been exposed? Fortunately, no passwords or dates of birth. Here’s what a sample of one million records published by the scrapper contains:

Email addresses
Full names
Phone numbers
Physical addresses
Geolocation records
LinkedIn username and profile URL
Personal and professional experience/background
Genders
Other social media accounts and usernames

Who would pay $5,000 for this information, you wonder? Spammers, phishers, and other cybercriminals are definitely the target audience here.

Also Read: Is Your Phone Hacked? How To Find Out & Protect Yourself

Having all this information in one place makes it much easier for them to create detailed profiles of their potential victims and launch sophisticated targeted attacks against them. Sure, they could simply scape it by themselves using LinkedIn’s own API (application program interface) just like the seller did, but cybercrime can be so profitable that their time is often more valuable.

If you have a LinkedIn account, then you should assume that your personal information is included in the dataset and act accordingly. More specifically, you should enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) and avoid replying to email messages from unknown senders, let alone opening any attachments they may contain.

Related Topics:Cybersecurity Hacking LinkedIn

Up Next

Gaelan Medical Reveals Smart Helmet To Treat Mental Disorders

Don't Miss

TikTok Increases Video Length From 60 Seconds To 3 Minutes

Click to comment

News

Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”

Instagram’s first wordmark refresh in a decade arrives with new fonts, a restrained gradient — and a Reddit verdict of sidegrade.

Published

4 days ago

August 14, 2026

Nour Nasir

Instagram

Although Instagram’s famous camera icon hasn’t changed, the company has refreshed the handwritten wordmark at the top of its app. This is the first redesign we’ve seen in ten years, and one the internet promptly set about renaming.

“The wordmark at the top of the app hasn’t changed in 10 years, so it was time for a refresh,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on August 13, describing the new version as “cleaner and more modern” while keeping references to the original design.

Instagram says its team explored hundreds of options — all-caps lettering, camera-inspired concepts, even literal handwriting — before returning to script. “Script reflects individuality, so referencing that felt right,” Instagram director of product design Jasmine Probst said in Meta’s announcement. “The new wordmark is bolder and simpler, with touches of unexpectedness. It cues individual expression, a personal voice, both of which have always been core to Instagram”.

The wordmark is part of a broader brand overhaul: an updated Instagram Sans typeface, two new fonts — the hand-drawn Instagram Pen and Instagram Mono — plus refreshed motion and layouts, and more restrained use of the signature gradient. The wordmark is rolling out globally now, with the rest arriving throughout 2026 and beyond.

Also Read: Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real

The design mixes cursive and print lettering, some characters connected and others floating free. That hybrid approach, combined with unusually shaped “s” and “r” characters, led some users to conclude the logo actually reads “Instagzam”. On the r/logodesign subreddit, one user said the wordmark looked “fan-made,” like something built in Canva; another called it “an unsettling mix of manuscript and cursive”; a third summarized it as a “sidegrade” — or, inevitably, a “zidegrade”.

Not everyone was hostile to the new look. Some found the half-cursive design stylish and surprisingly readable, while others called it an improvement on its predecessor, and one commenter argued Instagram was simply adopting minimalist branding later than everyone else. Either way, the platform now has a refreshed identity, three updated fonts, and an unofficial new pronunciation.