14 DAY TRIAL // LinkedIn has filed a lawsuit against the cybercriminals responsible for creating fake accounts which they use for spam and other malicious purposes. The social media company doesn’t know who they are, but that doesn’t mean the suit is in vain.
The complaint filed by the company has been obtained by Bloomberg. It shows that the cybercrooks have tools that automate the account registration process. Interestingly, the tools are designed in such a way so that LinkedIn’s monitoring doesn’t detect any suspicious activities.
LinkedIn is unhappy because if it’s flooded with bogus accounts, the social media network becomes less useful.
On one hand, the lawsuit might help the company identify the culprits, because it enables LinkedIn to enforce subpoenas to third parties, such as ISPs. On the other hand, even if the cybercriminals can’t be identified, some experts say the social network might simply want to intimidate them.
Facebook and Craigslist also filed similar lawsuits, but in their cases, they knew exactly whom they were targeting.
LinkedIn is apparently following on the footsteps of Microsoft. The Redmond company filed lawsuits against John Does suspected of operating botnets. Legal action plays an important role in disrupting the infrastructure used by the cybercriminals.