CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Canadian businesses see a rise in LinkedIn related scams

By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published May 31, 2023

Image by Tim Sandle, of a computer being used in a workplace.

According to research by NordLayer, a network security solution for businesses, more than half of businesses in Canada (59 percent) experienced at least one LinkedIn scam this year. The most affected were larger companies (65 percent of those polled). Furthermore, 58 percent of medium and 31 percent of small companies have experienced a scam or other fraudulent activity.

Larger companies tend to be targeted the most often due to their data and value. They also have larger networks and databases, which makes them especially vulnerable to attack if their security measures are not up to par.

Almost half of Canadian companies (43 percent) are also aware of a scam on LinkedIn using their organization’s brand name. This type of falsification scam was the most prevalent among big companies (53 percent).

Of these nefarious practices, phishing attempts were the most popular form of scam (at 47 percent). Consequently the interruption to services (45 percent) was the leading outcome of LinkedIn scams.

Other forms of scam include fake job offers (41 percent), fake technology support as well as requests to connect from an unknown person with a suspicious link in the message (38 percent each).

The role played by scammers was to seek information and money or to ruin reputations. Many of these actions were targeted at employees, who are considered to be the weakest links in the cybersecurity chain.

Here Canadian companies named interruption to services (45 percent) and stolen/damaged client contacts (42 percent) as the major service disruptors. Moreover, they also experienced stolen/damaged data (41 percent) and damaged reputation (38 percent).

Based on the attack mode it is important that firms educate their employees about the types of scams that exist and how to recognize them. Companies may also encourage their employees to use two-factor authentication.

It remains important for firms to monitor all activity on their business’s LinkedIn accounts. This means examining the accounts for suspicious activity, such as unauthorized logins or changes to account information.

To arrive at the data set, NordLayer surveyed 500 companies in three countries: the U.S., the U.K., and Canada between March 15 and 25, 2023. Respondents were asked a set of questions about LinkedIn scams in the business-to-business industry. The Canadian portion of the data was extracted and the core findings supplied to Digital Journal.