Microsoft purchased LinkedIn back in 2016 and until now there haven’t been any problems with the service. You might have found the LinkedIn AutoFill plugin useful, but it seems that there’s more to it than meets the eye. The plugin is vulnerable to leaking member data such as name, email address, location, phone number and users’ workplaces if the sire that is using this feature is susceptible to cross-site scripting exploits.

LinkedIn limits this feature to some websites

The feature is only limited to a small number of approved websites. ZDNet reported that at least one of these websites was found vulnerable to the exploit and it allows security research Jack Cable to exfiltrate LinkedIn user profile data just when a user clicked on the webpage of the site.

Cable stated that user data could be exposed to any website just if you click somewhere on that page and this is triggered by the fact that the AutoFill button can be invisible, spanning the whole page.

User data can be exposed regardless of privacy settings

Unfortunately, it doesn’t even matter how your privacy settings are configured because your information could still be exposed.

Cable revealed the sad news of the exploit’s existence after LinkedIn failed to fix the flaw and shut down communication with Cable.

For instance, if I set my privacy settings to not display my last name or email address and display a general location, this still returns my full name, email address, and zip code.

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Eventually, LinkedIn managed to fix the exploit

LinkedIn found and fixed the problem and also addressed it. Here’s what they said:

For more information on how to keep your personal data private while online, check out the guides listed below:

We immediately prevented unauthorized use of this feature, once we were made aware of the issue. While we’ve seen no signs of abuse, we’re constantly working to ensure our members’ data stays protected. We appreciate the researcher responsibly reporting this, and our security team will continue to stay in touch with them.

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