The headline is a scary one, but absolutely accurate.

How your personal data is being scraped from social media

Joe Tidy, Cyber security reporter, BBC News

Joe Tidy recently got in touch after we published our blog post last week, An investigation into the LinkedIn data sale on hacker forums.

We spoke at length about the data sale and the conflicting theories of how it was sourced. Joe has now written up his news article which you can read here and where we were featured.

The chief executive and founder of SOS Intelligence, a company which provides firms with threat intelligence, Amir Hadžipašić, sweeps hacker forums on the dark web day and night. As soon as news of the 700 million LinkedIn database spread he and his team began analysing the data.

Mr Hadžipašić says the details in this, and other mass-scraping events, are not what most people would expect to be available in the public domain. He thinks API programmes, which give more information about users than the general public can see, should be more tightly controlled.

“Large-scale leaks like this are concerning, given the intricate detail, in some cases, of this information – such as geographic locations or private mobile and email addresses. 

“To most people it will come as a surprise that there’s so much information held by these API enrichment services. 

“This information in the wrong hands could be significantly impacting for some,” he said.

Amir Hadžipašić, BBC News

We’d be very interested to speak to anyone who thinks they’ve been impacted by this.

Sadly, the vast majority of people won’t be aware that this can happen and also won’t be aware when a leak occurs. This is precisely where SOS Intelligence comes in.

We offer a free plan for anyone which takes seconds to set up and always monitoring of the email address you use on the Dark Web. What are you waiting for? You can sign up here.