Report Claims Breach Exposed 500 Million Linked Users, Microsoft Says Not Really

A recent report that made the headlines earlier this week indicated that an important batch of data belonging to users of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn was obtained by a hacker who was now selling it online.

The data breach allegedly exposed the information of no less than 500 million LinkedIn users, and according to reports, it included everything from full names and email addresses to highly sensitive details like phone numbers and employer info.

Furthermore, the exposed information was said to be offered for sale on various forums.

LinkedIn: Nope

But in a statement published recently, the Microsoft-owned company says that no breach actually occurred, and the information that’s included in the alleged batch of stolen data is actually based on public details and info from other websites.

“Members trust LinkedIn with their data, and we take action to protect that trust. We have investigated an alleged set of LinkedIn data that has been posted for sale and have determined that it is actually an aggregation of data from a number of websites and companies. It does include publicly viewable member profile data that appears to have been scraped from LinkedIn. This was not a LinkedIn data breach, and no private member account data from LinkedIn was included in what we’ve been able to review,” LinkedIn explained.

Furthermore, the Microsoft company went to explain that whoever tries to scrap information from LinkedIn violates the terms of the service and action is immediately taken against them.

“Any misuse of our members’ data, such as scraping, violates LinkedIn terms of service. When anyone tries to take member data and use it for purposes LinkedIn and our members haven’t agreed to, we work to stop them and hold them accountable,” it says.

The hacker is offering a preview of the alleged stolen database for just $2.