Monday, October 20, 2008

Warning: Don't Use Work Email on LinkedIn. Your Boss Can Steal Your Account!

A new warning has popped up about using your work email address for anything related to your job search. Jibber Jobber has posted a story, LinkIn Maintenance II: Do This Right Now (Or Else), about a woman who listed her work email as her primary email address for her LinkedIn account. She had built a tremendously valuable professional network through LinkedIn, which she considered something that belonged to her and therefore planned to continue using where ever she worked.

The problem arose when she left the company. Because she had listed her work email as her primary email address for her account, her exboss was able to access and take over her account and prevent her from accessing all her contacts.

Read the Jibber Jobber article to learn how you can prevent this from happening to you, as well as other tips on how to backup your LinkedIn account.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I thought it was possible to add several e-mails to your account in LinkedIn. This would prevent the person from being able to access their account.

Thanks,

Richard Rinyai
www.theprofessionalassistant.net

Susan Ireland said...

As Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber points out, it's the primary email address for the account that's critical. By using the primary email address, the ex-boss was able to open the woman's LinkedIn account, change the password, and effectively make the account his own. Evil but technically possible!

JibberJobber Guy said...

As far as I understand, she ONLY had ONE address in her account... but yes, Susan, I *think* the primary is critical.

Susan Ireland said...

Until we hear more on this, perhaps it's best not to use your work email address at all in your LinkIn account -- just to be on the safe side.

Phil Rosenberg said...

Susan,

Just forwarded your tweet on this. It's not just your Linkedin account at risk, it's also your Facebook & Twitter accounts. These networks and contacts may be at risk even if you use a personal email, if you've used an employer PC, network, or wireless network to manage (or post) to the account.

I wrote an article last fall describing the problem, risks, and easy solution in detail here: http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/10/13/do-you-own-your-own-name-or-does-someone-else/ .

Phil Rosenberg
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
http://reCareered.com

Phil Rosenberg said...

OOPS!! Gave you the wrong link (Thanks Susan). HEre's the link to the article I wrote this fall about how Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter accounts are at risk:

http://www.recareered.com/blog/2010/10/12/who-really-owns-your-linkedinfacebooktwitter-account/

Phil Rosenberg
phil.reCareered@gmail.com
http://reCareered.com