Yesterday at 12.41 I got a mail from linked in telling me that an email address had been added to my Linked in account. At 12.46 I tried to remove the mail but I had already been locked out of my account. I reported this to Linked in who immediately took my account down. In the intervening minutes, the hacker had sent out phishing mails to a number of my connections, if you were one of them, I hope you did not give away your password.

I do not know how many phishing messages went out, I have been contacted by three people who had them, if you have had one, please inform me on Linked in.

By 4pm , after full verification at my end which involved sharing ID and complex security checks, the account was put back.

I now use double verification which I did not use before. Had I used double verification I doubt I would  have been hacked.

My apologies to anyone inconvenienced by my not having double verification.

I urge all with linked in accounts to go to their security settings and add their phone number or other means of verification so that they don’t put their account and those of their connections at risk.

I’ll be posting this message directly on linked in as well as on my blog and I’d like to thank Linked In for their quick and personable service. Linked in security people were our heroes yesterday, I have now reviewed not just linked in but all my other social and email accounts , putting as many on double verification as possible, changing all passwords and carrying out other safety measures where possible.

If you do get hacked , you will probably find yourself locked out of your account because the hacker will have deleted your emails. You can contact linked in support directly on this link or use their Twitter support. This article is also helpful if you’ve lost your linked in account because of moving jobs.

It is easy to use Linked in support on Twitter @LinkedInHelp

We are the LinkedIn Social Support Team and avail 7 days a week! If you need help with your LI account, DM us your email address that is listed on your profile.

Cyber-crime is all our responsibility and it is good to know that Linked in are as smart at dealing with it, as we could possibly have hoped.