As an online privacy and cybersecurity expert, I’m often asked if buying connections or followers on career-minded platforms like LinkedIn is smart or ethical. It‘s complicated.
On one hand, buying connections can accelerate your growth and visibility. But it also comes with considerable downsides most don’t initially consider.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything to know about buying LinkedIn connections from a cybersecurity perspective, like:
- What buying connections involves
- The potential growth benefits
- Significant security and privacy risks
- How to safeguard your account if you proceed
- Whether it violates LinkedIn‘s terms
- Expert tips for expanding your reach organically
My goal isn’t to judge but educate you fully on the pros and cons, so you can make informed decisions. So let’s get started.
What Does It Mean to Buy LinkedIn Connections?
Buying connections means paying a third-party service to inflate your LinkedIn network size with fake accounts, bots, or spammed members. For fees starting around $10 per 100 connections, these services promise you overnight results and rapid growth.
Some use automation and scripts to send mass connection requests from fake accounts. Others spam real users with requests on your behalf. Either way, you pay for an instant boost in your connections metric.
But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Too many folks focus only on the growth upside without considering the dark side…
The Surface-Level Benefits of Inflating Your LinkedIn Connections
At first glance, services selling LinkedIn connections offer quite an alluring fast track:
Greater reach. More connections mean more conduits for sharing your profile and content further across the LinkedIn ecosystem. A wider potential audience to showcase your personal brand.
Faster growth. Manually connecting takes ages, often yielding meager results. Paying for connections promises exponentially bigger growth in mere days without all the outreach effort.
Perception of credibility. Studies show social proof carries weight in hiring and professional decisions. Sporting loads of connections can enhance your standing.
On the surface, these benefits make connection buying services seem like turnkey solutions for juicing up your LinkedIn success and visibility.
But just below the surface lurk major downsides…
The Privacy and Security Downsides of Buying LinkedIn Connections
While fast connections hold obvious appeal, I can’t endorse tactical growth shortcuts that disregard safety. As an online security pro, I weigh risks and benefits carefully before making recommendations.
And I have deep concerns about the dark side of buying LinkedIn connections, like:
Bot networks and spam schemes
Disreputable services rely heavily on bot networks and mass spamming schemes to deliver volumes of cheap connections at scale. As an online security expert, I can definitively state opening your account to bot-driven growth puts your data privacy and account security at huge risk.
Phishing and malware vulnerabilities
Bot-blasted connection requests are also prime phishing lures. If you accept requests from suspicious accounts, you grant them access to message you. They can then exploit that access to deliver malware payloads and compromise both your system and LinkedIn account. This is a common tactic cybercriminals use for account infiltration and data theft.
Account hijacking
Many connection services also require you to hand over your login credentials. This allows them direct access to control your account during the transaction. But it also provides avenues for ongoing account hijacking even after you change your password.
Ban circumvention and termination
Perhaps the biggest risk from a platform policy perspective is termination. LinkedIn actively blocks and bans many known sources of fake connections and followers. Any violation jeopardizes your account standing, which is tough to recover from.
Reputational damage
Since bought connections rarely engage meaningfully with your actual brand building content, over time their dormant nature becomes evident to legitimate connections. Too many of these “zombie” contacts undermines perceptions of your credibility and trustworthiness.
These downsides represent both digital threats to your privacy and professional reputation. Unfortunately, many buying services gloss over these risks in their marketing pitches leading folks to underestimate dangers.
But whether the growth incremental seems “harmless” or not, I don’t advise compromising your long-term security.
Safely Vetting Sources When Buying LinkedIn Connections
My first recommendation is always to avoid buying connections given the array of risks. Focus energy instead on organic growth tactics (which I’ll detail shortly).
However, if you decide it still suits your goals after assessing risks, extreme care must be taken in vetting potential connection sources.
As an online security pro , here are precautions I insist on before using any service:
🔐 Review privacy policies closely, checking for specifics on handling your data and activity monitoring
🔍 Independently research the company’s reputation on consumer warning sites like RipOff Report or SiteJabber
🔒 Connect only over encrypted channels if asked to provide any private account details
❓ Ask direct questions about their connection sources and delivery methods before transacting
📈 Start very small to gauge connection quality before making larger buys
⚠️ Monitor daily for suspicious connection activity post-transaction
Guarding Your Account Security When Buying Connections
Since I don’t endorse buying LinkedIn connections given the range of risks, I cannot in good faith recommend particular services. However, if you plan to proceed despite my advice, please safeguard your account:
🔑 Use unique credentials only for LinkedIn, keeping usernames and passwords completely distinct from other sites
🔐 Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) for an added account access control layer
🔁 Change passwords routinely every 45-90 days regardless to limit unauthorized access windows
⚔️ Revoke any application permissions granted to third parties post-transaction to prevent ongoing access
🔎 Scrutinize your account daily with notifications on for suspicious connection activity
🌐 Tighten your general privacy settings around public profile and connection list viewing
Does Buying Connections Actually Violate LinkedIn’s Terms?
In their User Agreement, LinkedIn clearly states artificially inflating connections or followers via third-party services violates their rules. They note such activity risks members having their accounts restricted, suspended or even permanently removed.
So beyond the shady tactics and security risks of credential sharing or downloading strange software, buying connections squarely transgresses the platform’s terms. Any vendor using ToS non-compliant means for delivering connections should raise immediate red flags.
Expert Tips to Grow Your LinkedIn Organically
Rather than risking your account and security buying connections, I recommend investing effort in organic growth. Using built-in tools mindfully, you can expand your reach authentically.
Here are my Top 7 tips for priming your LinkedIn presence naturally:
📝 Completely optimize your profile with rich media posts showcasing your capabilities and achievements relevant to your professional goals
🤝 Engage regularly by liking and commenting on others‘ content to build relationships. Share articles and publish your own posts to establish expertise
👥 Actively participate in relevant industry or interest groups aligned to your target audience and goals
➕ Strategically follow company pages related to organizations you want to work for or that offer products/services in your professional domain
💌 Send personalized connection invites with custom notes to professionals you admire or want to build relationships with
🕵️♂️ Export your email contacts and leverage LinkedIn’s matching tools to uncover existing connections under the surface
🎤 Establish yourself as an industry thought leader by actively publishing unique insights using LinkedIn‘s post tools
I recognize organic growth takes more work than buying connections. But the payoff is earning genuine relationships that actually further your career over the long haul.
Parting Thoughts
At its heart, LinkedIn is a relationship platform thriving on meaningful engagement between passionate professionals. So take the harder path of cultivating authentic connections aligned to your growth goals vs artificial boosting approaches.
While buying LinkedIn connections has some surface appeal for accelerating your trajectory, the privacy, security, reputation and policy risks make that shortcut a non-starter in my book as a cybersecurity pro. Focus instead on establishing trust and thought leadership organically with those already passionate about the space you occupy. That credibility compounds connections over time far more powerfully than any quick hack can sustain.
I hope this guide gave you a 360-degree view so you can make fully informed decisions. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions!
