Connection Request: DENIED Stopping Bot Connections on LinkedIn With Personal Diligence

Connection Request: Denied Stopping Bot Connections on LinkedIn With Personal Diligence

By: Brad Voris

I get a lot of connection requests from legitimate users wanting mentorship, peers in technology or security, sales professionals, leadership and from bots...

So lets take a look at a bot connection request and how to recognize these.

I got a connection request from the following user: Bella Lab

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So lets take a look at this fake profile and what its promoting:

Well lets take a look at the activity closer just to make sure:

Ok its a single repost right?

Ok well what else can we do moving forward to determine this is a bot?

Lets take a look at the profile and avatar used. If it were one or two things I'd say it was just a poor profile, but these are to numerous to not recognize.

Now lets take a look at the avatar

Ok maybe its legitimate right? It has to belong to someone... but just incase lets find out

Left Click on the Avatar to open it. Right click on the avatar and save the image.

Now lets go to Google Image Search and search for it

Click the camera icon. Click Upload image.

Choose the file and upload it.

Once the results show up scroll down to Pages That Include Matching Images

Lets just pick the first one...

I knew that the language was Southeast Asian just not sure, scrolling down a bit and I see the image...

A quick copy and paste into google translate...

Well that was an interesting exercise....

Ok we have all of the common indicators this is a fake profile, created to sell something and further its connection base.

Going to the Shared Post from this fake profile it takes me to...

Well look, its a certification and training reseller...

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So what did we learn from this exercise? A little bit of diligence you to can spot fake profiles and stop LinkedIn bot proliferation. Report these fake profiles, help stop this mess from spreading.