Read More: Unknown LinkedIn Connections Could Be Hackers in Disguise

Why does this happen? Because when you joined LinkedIn, your account was created without any privacy controls, allowing for full public visibility. All of LinkedIn was recently updated, and those privacy settings are simply the default settings. If you’d like to know more, keep reading to find out how to change your privacy settings for your LinkedIn account.

How to Change Your Privacy Settings on LinkedIn

Once you’re on your LinkedIn profile, here’s how to change your visibility settings. Click on “Me” > “Settings & Privacy” > “Privacy” > “Profile viewing options.” You’ll now see a list of three options: Your “name and headline” (public), “Private profile characteristics” (semi-private), and “Private mode” (fully private). Here’s the difference between these three options:

• Public: You’ll automatically be in this mode when you sign up for LinkedIn. So, if you view someone’s profile, they’ll see your full name, profile photo, and headline. LinkedIn says that they recommend the public mode, since it encourages more connection between its users. Indeed, a potential employer is more likely to find you if they notice that you’ve looked at their profile. But if you decide to stay in public mode, don’t look at the same profile repeatedly. It won’t help your chances of getting the job.
• Semi-Private: For this mode, if you visit someone’s profile, they’ll only see certain aspects of your identity, such as your company, location, or job title. But your name will be hidden. There isn’t a lot of benefit to being semi-private on LinkedIn. In a lot of cases, if someone went digging through the profiles, they could still track you down with this information.
• Private: If you want 100% invisibility while you use LinkedIn, this is the mode for you. No one will know your viewing activity. You’ll just appear as an anonymous LinkedIn viewer.

Some job-finding apps require users to upload their resume in order to better connect them with job opportunities. On platforms such as LinkedIn, members can choose whether to upload a PDF of their resume as part of their summary. However, individuals that choose to do so should be careful about the exact information included in the uploaded resume. It is common practice to include an address, phone number, and email along the top line of a resume, but this information should never be shared freely online. If job seekers plan to upload their resume, they should be sure to delete this information before doing so.

Read More: The 5 Most Famous Hacks of All Time

In the best case scenario, handing out your phone number and address online can result in spamming, which can be a nuisance. However, access to this information is more than enough to allow hackers to commit Internet fraud. While this information alone is not enough for fraudsters to commit financial theft, when combined with public records, searches can allow hackers to commit identity theft.

Careless with Company Information?

Job-finding apps are a common place to brag about new promotions, brokered deals, and financial successes. However, sharing this information online can often land you in trouble with your boss — and it’ll look bad to prospective employers. The amount of information that should be shared about a particular company online may vary by individual protocol. However, a good rule of thumb is to ask whether the information would prove advantageous to a competitor of your company. If the answer is yes, then it’s not something that should be shared. A role in an ongoing project or news of an upcoming expansion often fall into this category.

Financial Information

While employers will eventually need to ask for proprietary information — such as bank account numbers and Social Security numbers — this should be one of the last stages of the job-seeking process. In short, you should be standing in HR with a job offer in hand at this stage, not waiting for a callback interview. One way to guard against these bogus job ads is to verify the employee’s contact information — never reply to individuals who approach you under the name of a well-known company while using a third-party email address.

How in the world do you take a look at someone’s profile without letting them know you were there? There are a couple of steps you can take to browse LinkedIn without leaving a trace. It’s time to change your settings. Head to “Account and Settings,” then jump down to “Privacy and Settings.” Take a look at the different settings under the header “Privacy.”

Read More: Do Social Networks Respect Your Privacy?

From here, you can change whether or not your profile appears in search engines. Decide who you want to see your connections. Just don’t forget to click the options for “Profile Viewing Options.”

You can select what others see on your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t want to provide full access, and you want to make sure that not just anyone can view your profile photo and title, then choose a different option.

Opt for “Private Profile Characteristics” to include a general version of your title and location. To go completely anonymous, select “Private Mode.” Now, when anyone comes across your profile, it will read “Anonymous LinkedIn Member.”

Just remember that picking either “Private Profile Characteristics” or “Private Mode” will disable the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” function. Your own viewer history will be erased.

For a short term fix that won’t risk losing your own LinkedIn functionality, simply log out of your LinkedIn profile. Then, do a Google search on the person whose profile you want to view, making sure to add in “LinkedIn” to the search term.

Click on their profile and view it. Since you are logged out, your name and title will not appear in their analytics. As long as the person you want to view hasn’t opted out of a publicly searchable LinkedIn profile, you can see it.

Staying anonymous on LinkedIn isn’t difficult — it just takes a bit of a workaround. Just remember that, when you are finished viewing profiles anonymously, you should change your own profile to public if you want others to be able to find you.

Unknown Connections Could be Hackers in Disguise

Hackers may use LinkedIn to target senior level executives. In order to accomplish this goal, however, the hacker may try to connect with junior level executives and others within the company in order to seem as though they have a legitimate reason to try to connect with the upper level execs. When the hacker gains the connections that he or she is seeking, the hacker then tries to gain access to sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, credit card information, company information, and more. In addition to trying to connect to higher-ups within an organization, a hacker may pose as a recruiter or other trustworthy connection in order to either get users to open damaging links or visit websites that contain malware.

Read More: The Hackers Are Here: 3 Ways Cybercriminals Target Android Phones

How to Spot a Potential Hacker

Fake profiles often contain fake pictures that have been retrieved from Google Images or other free stock photography sites. In addition, the profile information may be copied from somewhere else on the internet; this can be detected, oftentimes, through a quick internet search. Furthermore, it is important to take some time to try and gauge why those seeking connections would want to connect with you. One key to spotting a potential hacker is to assess your position within your company, organization, or industry. Hackers have a tendency to target upper level professionals through LinkedIn. Thus, those in senior level positions should only connect with people on LinkedIn whose identities they can verify offline.

PSafe and LinkedIn Hackers

PSafe provides products that can help to make a LinkedIn user’s Android device safer and more efficient. PSafe Total’s antivirus protection guards your device against malicious online threats so that even if you do fall victim to a LinkedIn hacker, your device and personal information will be safe. PSafe Total Windows will also keep your desktop computer safe from threats.