LinkedIn has announced a new set of security features that will help verify user identity, remove fraudulent accounts, and boost authenticity, according to an official blog post from the company.
LinkedIn has experienced a few security incidents in the last couple years, as threat actors frequently target the social media site to execute malicious cyber campaigns.
Most recently, Krebs On Security reported on a scheme in which a large number of fake profiles representing Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) at some of the world's largest organizations were created, confusing LinkedIn users and search engines alike.
To combat these threat actors, LinkedIn has announced three new features. The first is an "About this profile" feature, which will show users when a profile was created, last updated, and if they have verified a phone number and/or work email associated with their account. LinkedIn says:
"Starting this week, you can find the 'About this profile' feature on each LinkedIn member's profile page, and soon you'll see it in more places over the coming weeks, including when viewing invitations and messages. For work emails, our plan is to start with a limited number of companies, but you can expect to see this expand as we add additional companies over time."
The company also included this screenshot to show what it will look like:
The second feature announced aims to combat fake profiles by checking to see if the profile photo was AI-generated, a technique threat actors frequently use to make a profile appear more legitimate.
LinkedIn's new "deep-learning-based model proactively checks profile photo uploads" with new technology to determine if the image is AI-generated. It says this model will help remove fake accounts before they have a chance to connect with legitimate users.
The third feature in this security rollout involves adding alerts to messages that may be suspicious:
"We may warn you about messages that ask you to take the conversation to another platform because that can be a sign of a scam. These warnings will also give you the choice to report the content without letting the sender know."
And it provides an example of what that will look like:
These security updates should have a positive impact on users' experience on the platform, limiting malicious cyber activity.
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