LinkedIn Vulnerabilities

Well I had another strange experience today that was both scary and yet flattering.

I went on LinkedIn to check out and update my company page, and I saw that under my company page, somebody was claiming to be CEO and president of The Brain Institute of America.

wait, what?!?!?!?

I thought hmmm…  That is interesting.  Who is this person?  And is this person me?

Turns out some random clinician from Texas was indicating they worked at my group.  Now it could also be that that particular profile was wrong, and and individual’s LinkedIn account was spammed or identity captured.

This experience left me feeling a little scared regarding the policies of LinkedIn. For two main reasons:

1) That a person can claim experience working on a LinkedIn page with little evidence of the fact.

2) When people claim to have worked at a company, the president or representative of the group has little ability to confirm that the individual actually worked there.

In my opinion this is a major security issue, and a huge drawback to the LinkedIn system.  The reason I joined LinkedIn and moved away from Facebook for certain initiatives was the integrity and the professionalism associated with the social media platform. However, if random entities can claim they work at a company, without verification, wouldn’t this result in complete chaos of the social media site?  I think LinkedIn should have a built in security check to prevent these types of events from occurring. If not, this social media group runs the risk of just becoming another Facebook for professionals.

Thankfully I was able to speak to someone at LinkedIn and resolve the issue. And looking back on it, I guess I am flattered.  Despite our group being around for a year, we must be going something awesome if someone wants to be me!

So thank you clinician from Texas, or the impersonators of the clinician from Texas, you just boosted myLinkedIn metrics and WordPress posts analytics.  However, the next time you want to join my group, then please put some effort into the process (or write a scientific review from my group).

Thanks!

by Brian Adams, The one and only President and CEO of The Brain Institute of America.

Which includes variations  of the wording such as (+/- THE, ++/- of, /- LLC)