Phony LinkedIn Job Postings

A new discovery with job postings on LinkedIn are not as secure, or professional, as you might expect. Anyone with a LinkedIn profile can anonymously create a posting for a job for small or medium-sized organizations. Now, the person creating the posts does not have to prove that they are even part of the company or organization itself. What this means for you, is that a cybercriminal could post a job opening for a real, actual organization and simply link you to a malicious website. 

What makes this worse, cybercriminals could use LinkedIn's "Easy Apply" option. What this option does is allow applicants to send a resume to the email address on file for the job posting without even leaving the Linked In platform. Since the email address is only associated with the job posting on the website and not the company itself, cybercriminals can trick you into sending your resume directly to them. What is scary about this, is you are unknowingly sending your personal & professional information, often included on resumes, directly to a cybercriminal.

A few helpful tips to stay safe from this threat:
- Watch out for grammatical errors, unusual language, style inconsistencies in LinkedIn job postings. Be suspicious of job postings that look different compared to other postings from the same organization.
- Avoid applying for a job within the LinkedIn platform itself. Instead, go to the organization's official website to find their careers page or contact information instead.
- If you do find a job posting that you think is suspicious on LinkedIn, report it! To do this, go to the Job Details page, click the more icon, and then click Report this Job.