Look for Shared Connections to Avoid LinkedIn Scams
The whole point of LinkedIn is to connect with others in a professional or career capacity, but like other social media platforms, LinkedIn is also a place where criminals try to access information about you and those you know.
Inc. offers some tips on how to quickly spot fake LinkedIn accounts so you don’t mistakenly connect from them. In addition to finding stock or stolen profile photos, this article advises looking for common connections:
Chances are, fake people won’t have many connections with you, and generally won’t have many secondary connections. Sure, some of your acquaintances may have fallen into a scam and were associated with a fake person (perhaps this is how the fake person found out about you in the first place), but the number of total connections is likely to be relatively small.
This is probably good advice for Facebook and other social media platforms. If you have a completely public LinkedIn profile, you probably have nothing to worry about as your information is already available, but if you save some data in your profile or activity just for your contacts, take note of who you are contacting.