During a social engineering assessment, you create a fake LinkedIn account impersonating an executive from the target company. Before sending connection requests to specific employees, which action will most effectively increase the profile's credibility and reduce the chance of being quickly reported or auto-flagged by LinkedIn?
Connect with real people in the same industry and company first, building a base of mutual connections and group memberships.
Disable two-factor authentication to avoid login issues when working through multiple proxy IP addresses.
Leave the profile photo blank to avoid potential image-theft complaints.
Set the entire profile to private so only approved contacts can view details.
Gaining several legitimate, industry-related contacts-especially existing employees of the target organization-creates mutual connections that boost trust signals in LinkedIn's scoring algorithms and in the eyes of human targets. A well-connected profile looks authentic, is less likely to trigger automated fake-account detection, and raises fewer suspicions when outreach begins. Making the profile private or photo-less actually decreases credibility, while disabling two-factor authentication has no impact on LinkedIn's trust metrics and weakens security instead.
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