New “BrowserGate” report claims LinkedIn secretly scans user browsers for installed extensions and collects device data


A new report is alleging LinkedIn uses hidden JavaScript to scan its visitors’ browsers for installed extensions, looks for those that compete with its own sales tools, and then twists its users’ arms until they stop using those and pick LinkedIn’s products, instead.

However the social network says this is a smear campaign run by a disgruntled extensions developer who lost a court battle in Germany. An “association of commercial LinkedIn users” called Fairlinked e.V published a report detailing “BrowserGate” – claiming LinkedIn scans for thousands of browser extensions and ties the results to identifiable user profiles – and by scanning, LinkedIn harvests personal and corporate information.

Read more…
Source: TechRadar News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Operation Triangulation: iOS devices targeted with previously unknown malware

    June 1, 2023

    While monitoring its own corporate Wi-Fi network dedicated for mobile devices using the Kaspersky Unified Monitoring and Analysis Platform (KUMA), Kaspersky researchers noticed suspicious activity that originated from several iOS-based phones. Since it is impossible to inspect modern iOS devices from the inside, researchers created offline backups of the devices in question, inspected them using the ...

  • New Horabot campaign targets the Americas

    June 1, 2023

    Cisco Talos has observed a threat actor deploying a previously unidentified botnet program Talos is calling “Horabot,” which delivers a known banking trojan and spam tool onto victim machines in a campaign that has been ongoing since at least November 2020. The threat actor appears to be targeting Spanish-speaking users in the Americas and, based on ...

  • CISA Releases Five Industrial Control Systems Advisories

    June 1, 2023

    CISA released five Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on June 1, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS. ICSA-23-152-01 Advantech WebAccess-SCADA ICSA-23-152-02 HID Global SAFE ICSA-22-256-03 Delta Electronics DIAEnergie (Update A) Read more… Source: U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency  

  • Critical Barracuda 0-day was used to backdoor networks for 8 months

    May 31, 2023

    A critical vulnerability patched 10 days ago in widely used email software from IT security company Barracuda Networks has been under active exploitation since October. The software bug, tracked as CVE-2023-2868, is a remote-command injection vulnerability that stems from incomplete input validation of user-supplied .tar files, which are used to pack or archive multiple files. Read more… Source: ...

  • Gigabyte motherboards come with a hidden firmware backdoor

    May 31, 2023

    Component supplier Gigabyte has some pressing questions to answer. The first and most pressing is, “Why did you put an updater backdoor into your own motherboard firmware without telling anyone?” The second is, “Why didn’t you lock it down in any meaningful way, hoping that it would stay secure simply by not being known?” Read more… Source: ...

  • Lazarus hackers target Windows IIS web servers for initial access

    May 29, 2023

    The notorious North Korean state-backed hackers, known as the Lazarus Group, are now targeting vulnerable Windows Internet Information Services (IIS) web servers to gain initial access to corporate networks. Lazarus is primarily financially motivated, with many analysts believing that the hackers’ malicious activities help fund North Korea’s weapons development programs. However, the group has also been ...