LinkedIn Concerns: How to Stay Safe on LinkedIn 2024?

LinkedIn is a social networking platform that most users create a LinkedIn account to search for jobs, connect with professionals and share knowledge.

Therefore, users put up their resumes consisting of various personal data as well as add additional personal information to their profiles to make themselves stand out.

However, is LinkedIn safe enough to share such personal data online? In this article, we will discuss LinkedIn privacy issues and what you can do to use LinkedIn safely.

• 1. Is LinkedIn Safe?
• 2. How to Maintain Your LinkedIn Privacy?
• 3. Safety Tips for Using LinkedIn
• 4. Top Frequently Asked Questions about LinkedIn
• Final Verdict

Is LinkedIn Safe?

"Is LinkedIn really safe?" Actually, there are various safety concerns regarding LinkedIn which prevent the platform from becoming completely safe for its users.

Let's check out the common LinkedIn security issues that any LinkedIn user can face.

Spyware/Malware Attacking

Hackers find it easy to deploy spyware and malware of the targeted group of users through LinkedIn. In the pretext of giving job offers, they ask the users to download certain apps which are actually spyware and malware.

These apps record phone activities secretly such as reading your text messages and get the user's online account credentials when they log into different apps.

Fraud, Scams, and Phishing

It is easy for scammers and hackers to trick LinkedIn users, especially job seekers, into their fraudulent schemes and scams. They promise the job seekers a prominent job in exchange for money, and desperate job seekers easily believe them looking at their profiles which look genuine from all perspectives.

Besides, hackers design phishing pages where they ask LinkedIn users, especially job seekers, to collect their personal data as well as login credentials.

Data Leakage

There is always a high probability of data leakage from social media sites. This is because social media sites sell user data to third-party for target advertisement.

LinkedIn users use login via LinkedIn option for signing into third-party apps. A data breach in any of these third-party platforms can lead to personal data leakage.

Public Information

It is usual for LinkedIn users to put up personal data and resumes on LinkedIn so that they can attract companies into hiring them. However, when users make their data public, anyone can view and extract their data and misuse them.

For example, experts can guess a person's password from his personal data by understanding the hint set for remembering the password.

Identity Theft

When someone gets your personal data from LinkedIn that you have made public on your profile or resume, he can easily steal your identity in the online world. By identity theft, he can pretend to be you and damage your reputation by posting embarrassing information on your behalf.

The worst-case scenario is that he can even change your accounts' usernames and passwords. This can be done by convincing the authorities that you have forgotten credentials and providing your personal data for identity verification.

How to Maintain Your LinkedIn Privacy?

Now that you have understood that there are major LinkedIn privacy issues, you have to take steps to ensure that your LinkedIn privacy stays intact. You have to take the help of third-party apps to provide you the necessary security while you access your LinkedIn account regularly.

ClevGuard anti-spyware is the best app for the all-around security and privacy of your Android smartphone.

How ClevGuard Maintains Your LinkedIn Privacy?

You can eliminate the chances of spyware attacks once you install the ClevGuard app and turn on its real-time protection feature. You can find any hidden spy app or malicious files already present on your phone instantly.

Also, you can use the app to know if your email account's security is compromised, which can put the linked online accounts in danger.

Here is the list of all the useful features of ClevGuard to ensure LinkedIn safety.

• Check and Delete LinkedIn Threats Completely

You can perform a thorough scan on your phone to detect any spyware or malicious file already active on your phone. The app can easily detect any spy app that stays hidden in sheath mode.

After scanning your phone, you can see all the issues that are hampering LinkedIn security as well as your phone privacy. After reviewing the issues, you can eliminate the issues instantly.

• Protect LinkedIn in Real-Time

With ClevGuard, you can complete protection for your LinkedIn all the time with the real-time protection feature. ClevGuard monitors all the downloads on your phone, and it alerts you as soon as it detects any suspicious file becoming active on your phone, and then you can take action to eliminate these issues instantly to protect your LinkedIn and phone privacy.

• Protect Phone Microphone and Camera from being Spying

There are some spyware and malware that can give hackers remote hack your phone camera and microphone. This will allow them to spy on your physical activities like watching your movement and listening to your conversations in real-time.

ClevGuard anti-spyware notifies you as soon as it detects any spy getting control over your camera or microphone so that you can take prompt actions.



• Check Email Breach

If the email address with which you have opened your LinkedIn account is compromised, your LinkedIn account could be in danger of getting hacked.

ClevGuard app lets you check email breach and let you know if your email account's credentials were leaked in any data breach without you knowing about it. You can also check the details of the data breach incident and perform all the security steps that the app recommends to protect your email account.

• Clear Phone Junk Files

Junk files originating from any app contains sensitive information, and hackers can feed on them to extract those metadata. Besides, there are always some bulky junk files that unnecessarily take up space on your phone. ClevGuard app helps you to eliminate junk files entirely as well as selectively.

3 Steps to Secure Your LinkedIn with ClevGuard

Here are the steps to install and use ClevGuard to secure LinkedIn privacy.

Step 1. Install ClevGuard on Your Phone

You can directly click "Google Play" button below to install ClevGuard on your phone.

Step 2. Detect Threats for Your LinkedIn

After installation, open the app and tap on "Scan" button. The app will now take a few seconds time to scan your phone to see if there are threats to your LinkedIn.

Step 3. Protect Your LinkedIn and Phone Privacy with ClevGuard

After scanning is over, you will see the list of threats on your phone. After reviewing the list of issues, tap on "Resolve All" button to eliminate the threats and start protecting your LinkedIn privacy.

Safety Tips for Using LinkedIn

Apart from installing ClevGuard app, here are some safety tips that you have to keep in mind to avoid LinkedIn dangers to a greater extent.

1. Don't Give Your Financial Information to Other LinkedIn Users

If a person has offered you a job through LinkedIn and he has asked for your financial information through LinkedIn messages, you should not share it immediately. If the job offer is genuine, ask the person to collect your financial information in a more secure way such as sending details through mail.

Besides, the financial information is meant for transferring salary, and hence, you should not share any PIN or passcode if asked.

Moreover, there are some job offers where you are asked to pay a certain application fee for further proceedings. They will redirect you to a phishing website where you give in your financial details to make the payment.

In the background, your financial details like bank details or credit card details are recorded, and later on, a huge chunk of money is transferred from your account without you knowing.

2. Be Careful about the Jobs Offers You Received in LinkedIn

Scammers are coming up with job offers to trick LinkedIn users to fall into their trap. They want to collect your personal details for identity theft, your financial details to steal money, your online account credentials to hack your accounts.

If the job offer you are getting is too good to be true, you should question and research before giving in any personal details. If any company is offering you a job, you should get the contact details of the company from its official website and enquire if the company is actually offering a job opportunity through LinkedIn.

3. Don't Accept Every Invitation on LinkedIn

You should never accept any invitation on LinkedIn without checking the person's profile. If you do not know the person and there is no common connection, you should reject the invitation.

This is because the person could be a potential scammer, and once you accept the invitation, your profile data will be visible to him. He can misuse those data to scam you.

4. Report Inappropriate Content to LinkedIn

If you come across LinkedIn users who are running scams, providing phishing links, sending unsolicited messages, you should report them immediately to the LinkedIn team so that they can take prompt actions. It is not only your moral duty, but your activities will also help LinkedIn to stop the network of scammers on LinkedIn.

5. Set Your LinkedIn Settings and Privacy

If you want to strengthen the privacy of your profile, you need to change the default settings that you set when you created your account. Here are the steps to follow.

Step 1: Open your LinkedIn account.

Step 2: Tap on your profile picture or Me icon.

Step 3: Tap on Settings & Privacy option from the drop-down menu.

There are various sections to ensure safety and privacy.

• Sign In & Security - Tweak the settings to secure your account. You should enable two-step verification as well as check the active sessions to find if someone else is logging into your account.
• Visibility - Here, you can manage who can see your profile, activity, and network.
• Data Privacy - You can adjust how LinkedIn uses your data, your job seeking preferences as well as how other applications are handling your data.
• Advertisement Data - You can manage the data LinkedIn collects to show you relevant ads.
• Communications - You can control who and how someone can contact you as well as adjust your message settings.

Top Frequently Asked Questions about LinkedIn

1. Is It Safe to Upload a Resume on LinkedIn?

It is safe to upload a resume on LinkedIn. But you should not make it public for everyone to check it out and fetch your personal details. You can make it private and share it once a person sends you a request.

You should then check the person's profile to ensure he is not a scammer. If you want to make your resume public, then do not share anything personal like address and contact number such that no one can misuse your personal data from your resume.

2. Will LinkedIn Contact Me Ask for My Personal Detail?

The LinkedIn team will never ask for your personal details through emails or messages. They have all the different fields on the profile page for users to fill up as per requirements.

There is no need to share anything through email or message. There are many scammers who pretend to be from the LinkedIn Contact Me team and they ask for your personal details to scam you.

3. Is Providing Card Details on LinkedIn Safe?

No, it is not safe to provide your debit or credit card details on LinkedIn. LinkedIn takes card details while free users try out the free trial of premium services to retain you even after the free trial is over.

However, it is not safe to provide card details on LinkedIn due to various third-party apps accessing LinkedIn user data for targeted advertisement.

Any data breach incident in any of these third-party apps can expose your card details to hackers. Therefore, as soon as the trial period or subscription is over, you should change your payment methods and delete card details.

Final Verdict

Hopefully, you have understood that LinkedIn is not completely safe to use blindly. You have to ensure your own safety and security to protect your privacy and personal data. You should take all the steps to not make it easy for scammers and hackers to get your personal data and scam you.

We also recommend you install ClevGuard on your phone to prevent hackers from spying on your phone activities and break through your LinkedIn privacy.