Job fraud has been a widespread cybercrime since the peak of the pandemic, as threat actors were seen spoofing recruiters to offer job hunters fake jobs, aiming to steal money and sensitive data and tricking them into committing money laundering schemes.
The job fraud campaigns offer victims remote jobs with high salaries to effectively bait them into the agreement. Based on research, Americans, Europeans, and Australians are the most targeted by the campaign, with over 4,000 email threats being sent daily.
Students seeking remote work jobs are the majority of the targets in the campaign, with threat actors sending their malicious emails to accounts linked to universities.
Experts also shared that about $3,000 is the average loss of the victims upon falling into the job fraud campaign. These cybercrime activities could lead to unsuspecting people losing their hard-earned savings instead of earning from a desired remote work opportunity.
The scammers spoof various templates from the real branding of companies to trick victims into job fraud. They also create fake email accounts in sending malicious emails to their victims.
An example of an actual scam from this campaign is the spoofing of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) offering a personal assistant position for $400 per eight hours of work. The targeted victims are sent a Google form link to fill in, with questions that include their name, mobile number, and alternate email address.
Upon sending their details from the Google form, the victim will receive a new email consisting of the details regarding the fake job offer and a cashier’s check worth $1,950 so that the victims will get enthused to accept the opportunity.
Afterwards, the scammer will ask how much money they have in their bank accounts and request to transfer $1,000, supposedly for a donation to be given to children in orphanages. If the victims bite, they would be left with their banks empty since the check that the fake employer had sent cannot be cashed.
The case above is only one of the many job fraud campaigns that cybersecurity experts warn people to look out for. Many job seekers are eyeing remote jobs amid the pandemic, and these scammers exploit the opportunity.
It is highly recommended that people research the companies that offer them jobs and verify if the recruiters are actual people from human resources with legal documentation.
