After FB, LinkedIn now faces massive 500 mn users' data leak

by Argus News

New Delhi, April 9: While people are yet to digest the huge Facebook data leak of 533 million users (including 6.1 million Indians), Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn is now facing a massive data leak of 500 million users that is allegedly being sold online.

An archive with data purportedly scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles has been put for sale on a popular hacker forum, with another 2 million records leaked as a proof-of-concept sample by people behind the hack.

"The four leaked files contain information about the LinkedIn users whose data has been allegedly scraped by the threat actor, including their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, and more," reports CyberNews.

The leaked data up on sale includes LinkedIn IDs, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, genders, links to LinkedIn profiles, links to other social media profiles, professional titles and other work-related data

"While users on the hacker forum can view the leaked samples for about $2 worth of forum credits, the threat actor appears to be auctioning the much-larger 500 million user database for at least a 4-digit sum, presumably in bitcoin," the report mentioned.

LinkedIn said in a statement on Thursday that it has "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," the company said.

"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".

The author of the post, however, claims that the data was scraped from LinkedIn.

Earlier this month, personal data of nearly 533 million (53.3 crore) Facebook users, including 61 lakh Indians, emerged online after a hacker posted the details on a digital forum.

The leaked data included Facebook ID numbers, profile names, email addresses, location information, gender details, job data, and other details.

Facebook said this was old data that it previously reported on in 2019.

"We found and fixed this issue in August 2019," a Facebook spokesperson said.

(IANS)

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4th T20i: Rinku, Jitesh, Jaiswal Help India To 174/9 Against Australia

by Pabitra Mohan Senapaty

Raipur, Dec 1: A late charge by Rinku Singh, who blasted a 29-ball 46, and Jitesh Sharma, who hammered a 19-ball 35, helped India recover from a mid-innings collapse and scamper to 174/9 in 20 overs against Australia in the fourth T20I of the five-match series here on Friday.

Rinku and Jitesh raised 56 runs for the fifth wicket before India lost a few wickets towards the end of the innings and managed only 174.

After Australia skipper Matthew Wade won the toss and inserted India in to bat first, the hosts raised 50 runs in the sixth over with openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad going great guns at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium here.

In a stadium that was reportedly facing power problems because of allegedly unpair electricity bills, Jaiswal struck six fours and a six in his 28-ball 37 before pacer Aaron Hardie extracted extra bounce with a cross-seam short delivery outside off to have the Indian batter pulling to Ben McDermott, running in from mid-on.

India lost two quick wickets as Shreyas Iyer (8) and Suryakumar Yadav (1) departed, falling victim to Tanveer Sangha and Ben Dwarshuis respectively.

Ruturaj Gaikwad, who struck 32 off 28 balls hitting three fours and a six, was caught by Dwarshuis off Sangha as he attempted to go big over extra cover but edged it to short third man.

India were reduced to 111/4 in the 14th over before Rinku and Jitesh Sharma came together to raise a quick-fire half-century that propped up the Indian innings. Rinku slammed four boundaries and two maximums while Jitesh struck one four and three sixes as they propelled India to 167 before the wicketkeeper batter was out, caught by Travis Head off Dwarshuis.

Trying to raise as many runs as possible, India lost five wickets in the last two overs starting from the fourth ball of the 19th over. Jitesh Sharma (18.4), Axar Patel (18.5) and Rinku Singh (19.1) got out over three consecutive balls spread across two overs while Deepak Chahar (19.3) and Ravi Bishnoi (19.6) also fell in the final over.

For Australia, Ben Dwarshuis claimed 3-40 while Jason Behrendorff (2-32) and Tanveer Sangha (2-30) claimed a couple of wickets apiece.

India will now have to come up with a superb effort with the ball to prevent Australia from levelling the series 2-2 going into the fifth and final T20I at Bengaluru.

Brief scores:

India 174/9 in 20 overs (Rinku Singh 45, Yashasvi Jaiswal (37), Jitesh Sharma 35, Ruturaj Gaikwad 32; Ben Dwarshuis 3-40, Jason Behrendorff 2-32, Tanveer Sangha 2-30) against Australia.

(IANS)

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Suvendu Adhikari Files RTI Seeking Details Of Recruitment In State Health Services Since 2011

by Pabitra Mohan Senapaty

Kolkata, Dec 1: The leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, said on Friday that he has filed an application under Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking details of all recruitment made in the state health services since 2011, the year Trinamool Congress came to power by ending Left Front's 34-year rule.

Adhikari said he suspects massive irregularities in the recruitment in state health services, just like the alleged school jobs and municipal recruitment scams, which are being probed by central agencies.

“I have been informed by my reliable sources from within the West Bengal Health Recruitment Board that there have been serious irregularities in the recruitment process since 2011. Transfers are effected according to the whims and fancies of a few influential individuals. In order to get to the bottom of this, I have filed an application under the RTI Act,” Adhikari said.

In the application to the state public information officer of the Health & Family Welfare Department, a copy of which is available with IANS, Adhikari has sought to know the number of people recruited by the department since 2011.

He has also sought the numbers and names in a yearly order along with the categories of positions and designations for which the recruitment were made.

“Kindly provide the name of the hospitals or any other place of work (if applicable) along with the location details where they were initially posted,” the application read.