Blindsided on LinkedIn: The Alarming Way Chinees Cybercriminals Seized Control of My Account

This story is more intriguing than ever, and frankly, it’s really smart and sophisticated.

Look, I’ve been involved in cybersecurity and all things “blue hat” for a while now, and busting scammers and their modus operandi has been my side gig for a long time.

Now, this is all about my recent LinkedIn account hack, and let me tell you, it’s a wild ride. I had two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled, and I was logging in from my computer and iPhone only, so I thought I was playing it safe. But boy, was I in for a surprise.

A week ago, I was just casually browsing LinkedIn when suddenly, the whole UI and language changed to Chinees! I was like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?”

Now, this is all about my recent LinkedIn account hack, and let me tell you, it’s a wild ride. I had two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled, and I was logging in from my computer and iPhone only, so I thought I was playing it safe. But boy, was I in for a surprise.

A week ago, I was just casually browsing LinkedIn when suddenly, the whole UI and language changed! I was like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?” So, I did some research and found out that LinkedIn can change the language based on your system settings. But here’s the kicker – my system language was set to English, so I was scratching my head, wondering how this could have happened.

Long story short, everything was in Chinese, and the translation wasn’t working either. After a bit of tinkering, I managed to sort out the language issue from the settings, and I checked my login activity, which showed only two devices. I thought, “Alright, I’m in the clear. Must have been a glitch or something.”

But, oh, how wrong I was. Three days later, on April 5th, 2024, I was just leaving the movie theater when I started getting emails in Chinese. My login activity from Canada, and my photo ID had been changed! — what a move by hackers just changing language so that they can buy some more time sabotaging account/system. —

I was like, “Woah, all my networking efforts are going down the drain, and this is happening even with 2FA enabled?” Needless to say, I was worried.

It was time for some serious remediation action.

I immediately logged in from my phone, changed my password, and found that the hacker had made numerous changes to my bio, experience, and even added a few new connections. Sorting this out was a bit of a challenge, but I knew I had to act fast to prevent any further damage.

and

 

So, what did I do? I decided to hibernate my LinkedIn account, which takes 24 hours to activate again even after right password, effectively locking the hacker out. Later that night, I emailed LinkedIn about the issue, and they helped me sort it all out.

Careful peeps’ Technology is evolving into quantum space!

 

Updated: 09- April – 2024 || 1408 HRS

Still there is some level of access to my account, no other sessions than my laptop, 2FA Enabled and all security features on!!!

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Praneethraj Bhat
Praneethraj Bhathttps://prbhat.com/
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