14 DAY TRIAL // Bitdefender experts have spotted an upgraded version of the classic Nigerian scam on LinkedIn.
The scammers have created a fake LinkedIn profile of Aziz Mohammad, the manager of a popular Malaysian bank. To make it more legitimate-looking, the information from the bogus profile has been copied from the real Aziz Mohammad’s profile.
Once the profile is set up, the fraudsters start sending out proposals in hope that they can convince company executives to enter a “business partnership.”
There are several reasons for which scammers have turned to this approach.
LinkedIn is mainly used by business people and it’s more trusted than other social networks. Fraudsters are well aware of it and they want to profit from this trust as much as they can.
In addition, by targeting businesses, they can make much more money than they would from regular Internet users.
For instance, they can use the bank accounts of the companies for money laundering. In the accounts of regular money mules the crooks can transfer only a limited amount of money before the transactions are flagged, but the limits are much higher with business bank accounts.
Currently, LinkedIn has suspended the fake account, but the scammers can easily set up new ones, so beware.
