79Trust
Verified
🔍 Web Verified
BrianKrebsonMastodon1d ago
Say what you will about LinkedIn and all its phony baloney, but it is occasionally useful for discovering friends of known threat actors. Plenty of cybercriminals have IRL LinkedIn profiles, and when you find them LI helpfully suggests a number of other accounts you might be interested in following that it thinks are somehow related to the profile you're looking at. And that's twice now this month that LI has revealed connections between threat actors that I didn't find on my own.
Trust Metrics
80
80
70
85
Accuracy80%
Framing80%
Context70%
Tone85%
Analysis Summary
Krebs reports that LinkedIn's connection recommendation algorithm has twice this month helped him identify relationships between known cybercriminals — a useful counterintuitive side effect of the platform's social graph mapping. This reflects the broader security researcher practice of using legitimate social platforms to map threat actor networks, exploiting the fact that criminals often maintain professional accounts for reconnaissance and networking. The observation underscores a common challenge for platforms: features designed to help users find contacts can inadvertently assist investigators in tracking organized threat actors.
Claims Analysis (2)
“LinkedIn's connection suggestions have revealed connections between threat actors that Krebs did not find independently”
Krebs states this as firsthand observation from his own research. The claim is plausible — LinkedIn's algorithm does suggest connections based on mutual contacts and shared networks. Web search shows active cybercriminal use of professional networks, but cannot independently verify this specific instance twice this month.
“Cybercriminals maintain LinkedIn profiles”
Well-documented in cybersecurity reporting. Multiple threat actor investigations have revealed professional social media use for reconnaissance and network building.
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