BENGALURU : Having an online professional profile has its own perks, especially when you can connect with people to help your career grow. But when such a platform is used just like any other dating platform, professionalism gets hindered. Gargi Guha, director of public relations at a luxury hotel in Bengaluru, had her Linkedin account hacked for almost three weeks last month. Relieved to have retrieved her account on July 4, she says, "I tried to login to my account – through my phone and computer – but nothing worked. So I put a post up on Facebook asking people for help."
The conversation kept growing until a friend had looked into her profile, only to find out that her account had been hacked by someone with a fake profile named Rick Manson from New York. "At first, nobody could find my profile and it took a while until one person found it through his profile. He then contacted customer support for me," Gargi adds.
When she finally got into her account, she explains that she was dumbfounded to find thousands of messages sent from her profile to several 'single' women across various connections. Recalling the last time she logged into her account she admits, "I had noticed that an unknown e-mail ID was used as the primary email for the profile, but it didn't register in my head at the time."
"The usage of my account was crucial at this point because I had just joined a new job last month," she adds. She has since posted a message informing people of her real account and explaining the incident. "Even to this day, I receive replies to messages that were sent out from my profile. I changed my passwords for both the professional profile and my e-mail ID as well," she says.
Avoid logging
MD Sharath, deputy superintendent of police working with the cyber crime cell, says that user credentials – a user name and password authentication token that is bound to a particular user – are very crucial to prevent such incidents. "When it is compromised, it becomes a problem. Otherwise, there is no way a hacker can get into one's account," says Sharath. He adds that passwords must be long with alpha numericals, and that users must avoid logging in through public computers.
When CE contacted Linkedin, they were unavailable for comment.
lucky escape
A similar incident happened to Karthik Vidyashankar on June 29, '18. The corporate employee's account was hacked, and a picture of a naked woman was posted. Luckily, he was informed the same day by a friend, and he immediately changed all his passwords. "I now keep a closer watch on my social media and bank accounts. I use only my laptop to login to my bank account, which is more secure with all anti-virus and anti-spyware installed," he says.