UPDATED 09:01 EDT / SEPTEMBER 28 2010

LinkedIn Faces “Biggest” Spam Attack Amidst Site Feature Updates

For  “more personalized career insight,” LinkedIn launches the latest Company Follow platform.  It will provide additional access to company profile records, and offers additional features enabling companies to choose what they want to share with their followers.  As LinkedIn pushes the new features out to users, it also becomes the latest social media site to get a wave of malware attacks.

This latest platform has a new look and feel, and offers better customization of companies’ blog posts, jobs, company news and corporate feeds. Being more personalized, it is easier for users to view first and second degree connections. Also, there’s access to more information on companies daily activities within the LinkedIn network.

Company Follow’s biggest feature is the new Career Tab for companies and professionals. It will most especially benefit job seekers. As users visit a company profile page, professional opportunities offered will be tailored to their profiles making it easier for them to identify and understand the opportunities available.It will also connect companies with job seekers. From LinkedIn:

“As you explore companies of interest, you will be able to understand and reflect upon the company’s hiring practices, hear employees at the company talk about their experience and learn more about the profiles of other employees at the company – in terms of composition of the workforce, by department, average tenure of employees at the company and the like. The “Careers Tab” improves your interaction further by helping you connect with recruiters at the company directly.”

As social sites support easily shared content, they also fall prey to attacks.  Cisco noted in its security community blog that spam email messages are being sent out to LinkedIn users. “This is the largest such attack known to date,” wrote Cisco in its posted warning.

Member of LinkedIn are sent a spam email with a link that when clicked triggers the spreading of a malicious code known as “ZeuS.” This code “embeds itself in the victim’s web browser and captures personal information, such as online banking credentials, and is widely used by criminals to pilfer commercial bank accounts,” Cisco said.

This comes on the tail of recent Gmail attacks, and days after both Facebook and Twitter were victimized by malware.


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