LinkedIn adds new checks for fake profiles and work histories

LinkedIn is adding trust and verification features aimed at making fake professional identities, invented work histories, and company impersonation harder to pull off. The company is responding to an environment in which generative AI enables imposters to create an entirely made-up professional persona. It reduces the cost of creating convincing headshots, biographies, résumés, outreach messages, and recommendations. LinkedIn’s new features use verified people and company Pages to help check other users’ claims. Colleague and classmate vouching: People can confirm that they worked or studied with someone during the period listed on that person’s profile. This confirms an affiliation; it does not rate the person’s ability or recommend them. Employer control over false affiliations: Admins of verified company Pages can remove people who falsely claim to work there from the company’s associated people and search results. This doesn’t remove the person’s profile or erase the claim from it. Workplace verification requirement (in testing): LinkedIn is testing a setting that would require people who want to associate themselves with a company Page to verify their workplace, for example, through a work email address. Verified identity beyond LinkedIn: LinkedIn is extending partnerships that let users display their LinkedIn-verified identity elsewhere. New partners include Truecaller and PeerSpot, alongside Adobe and UserTesting. LinkedIn hopes that multiple visible signals such as identity verification, workplace verification, peer corroboration, and company Page controls will make a fabricated profile less persuasive. It says its existing verification tools have verified 115 million members and more than 700,000 companies. LinkedIn VP of Product Oscar Rodriguez told TechCrunch : “We’ve been invested in [verification] because we believe that authenticity will be the single most valuable currency on the internet.” These new affiliation checks cannot tell a job seeker whether an opportunity is genuine. A scammer does not always need to impersonate a major employer. They can invent a convincing startup, build a polished company Page, and use fake job listings or recruiters to lure applicants. The checks may be less helpful if the supposed employer itself is part of the scam. As we’ve seen in recent research , criminals pose as both well-known companies and appealing new ventures offering the kind of role a job seeker hopes to find. The new checks may help someone determine whether a supposed recruiter is affiliated with a company they recognize. They may be less helpful when the company itself is part of the scam. Verification is therefore a useful signal, not a guarantee. Job seekers should still be wary of unsolicited approaches, pressure to move conversations off LinkedIn, requests to install software or share identity documents, and job offers that arrive before a credible interview process. Check a recruiter’s affiliation, visit the employer’s website independently, and confirm that its contact details and job listing match. LinkedIn’s changes acknowledge a growing problem: AI can make a fake professional identity look remarkably polished. Verified accounts, workplace affiliations, and colleague confirmations may become more valuable to criminals, too. They may try to exploit those signals through stolen accounts, manipulated verification, or carefully constructed networks of fraudulent profiles. Verification can raise the cost of deception, but it cannot replace healthy skepticism. Scammers don’t need to hack you. They just need you to click once. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection catches suspicious activity before it becomes a problem. About the author Was a Microsoft MVP in consumer security for 12 years running. Can speak four languages. Smells of rich mahogany and leather-bound books.