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.
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.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
RØDE’s New DS3 Studio Arm Is Built For Heavier Creator Setups
Dubai Turns AI On Its Own Civil Service To Measure Productivity
Former Rockstar Director Dismisses GTA 6 Leaks As “Nothing Burger”
Qatar Airways Flies The World’s First Starlink-Equipped 787-9
Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real
Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
Anghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
Qatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade
-
News3 weeks agoInstagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
-
News3 weeks agoAnghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
-
News3 weeks agoQatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
-
News3 weeks agoDubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade