Thousands of dollars are being tricked out of young and naive children...
Experts are warning of a new wave of scams targeting college graduates in North America. Cybercriminals send fake job offers in the field of biosciences and medicine to yesterday's students in order to extort money from gullible and still completely "green" specialists.
As the cybersecurity company Proofpoint found out, the last such mass phishing mailing was conducted in May-June — just in time for the graduation season. The emails were allegedly sent on behalf of biotechnological and medical organizations and contained invitations to an interview for remote work with data.
Although the details of the alleged interviews are unknown, this scheme is a variation of the so-called "advance payment fraud". The attackers offer the victim to pay an advance payment, which allegedly goes to the technical equipment of their workplace, and then disappear along with the money.
Proofpoint notes that similar job ads in biotech have been appearing since March. However, employment fraud has been a well-known and popular method of deception for many years.
"These scammers play on the feelings of people who are looking for work. They offer a position, but at the same time ask you to pay for the necessary equipment and software for it. And then they just steal this money, " Proofpoint experts warn.
It is especially dangerous that the attack occurred just at the time of mass layoffs in large IT companies, which affected thousands of different specialists who are now desperately looking for work.
Students are a tasty target for scammers. After all, they are very interested in employment and are most likely to believe offers of remote employment from questionable emails. Even those who use English as their native language may not notice signs of fraud.
Emails come from fictitious email addresses that mimic existing organizations with topics like "About the interview". The names of the senders are also copied from real specialists who can easily be found on LinkedIn. In some such mailings, attackers even use basic information about the victim in order to personalize their message as much as possible.
Attachments to such emails contain a list of required software and hardware, usually worth several thousand dollars. The victim is either asked to pay the bill before going to work, promising compensation from the first salary, or immediately sent a fictitious check for the same amount, from which the victim will not be able to withdraw any funds later.
Proofpoint suggests that attackers can also request cryptocurrency, allegedly for the delivery of the necessary equipment. Although the current wave was dominated by biomedical topics, similar schemes are used in other areas.
Experts remind you that real employers never require prepayment or advance payments. Even if we are talking about a very real and prestigious company.
Such attacks are carried out by both private scammers for profit and state-owned cybercrime groups. Last year, it was reported that North Korean hackers massively sent emails about bogus job openings and salary increases in order to infect victims ' computers with malware to steal cryptocurrencies.
Similar complaints were received from students at Harvard University and other large organizations. The FBI has also repeatedly warned of fraudulent job ads being used to divorce job seekers in Southeast Asia.
Experts are warning of a new wave of scams targeting college graduates in North America. Cybercriminals send fake job offers in the field of biosciences and medicine to yesterday's students in order to extort money from gullible and still completely "green" specialists.
As the cybersecurity company Proofpoint found out, the last such mass phishing mailing was conducted in May-June — just in time for the graduation season. The emails were allegedly sent on behalf of biotechnological and medical organizations and contained invitations to an interview for remote work with data.
Although the details of the alleged interviews are unknown, this scheme is a variation of the so-called "advance payment fraud". The attackers offer the victim to pay an advance payment, which allegedly goes to the technical equipment of their workplace, and then disappear along with the money.
Proofpoint notes that similar job ads in biotech have been appearing since March. However, employment fraud has been a well-known and popular method of deception for many years.
"These scammers play on the feelings of people who are looking for work. They offer a position, but at the same time ask you to pay for the necessary equipment and software for it. And then they just steal this money, " Proofpoint experts warn.
It is especially dangerous that the attack occurred just at the time of mass layoffs in large IT companies, which affected thousands of different specialists who are now desperately looking for work.
Students are a tasty target for scammers. After all, they are very interested in employment and are most likely to believe offers of remote employment from questionable emails. Even those who use English as their native language may not notice signs of fraud.
Emails come from fictitious email addresses that mimic existing organizations with topics like "About the interview". The names of the senders are also copied from real specialists who can easily be found on LinkedIn. In some such mailings, attackers even use basic information about the victim in order to personalize their message as much as possible.
Attachments to such emails contain a list of required software and hardware, usually worth several thousand dollars. The victim is either asked to pay the bill before going to work, promising compensation from the first salary, or immediately sent a fictitious check for the same amount, from which the victim will not be able to withdraw any funds later.
Proofpoint suggests that attackers can also request cryptocurrency, allegedly for the delivery of the necessary equipment. Although the current wave was dominated by biomedical topics, similar schemes are used in other areas.
Experts remind you that real employers never require prepayment or advance payments. Even if we are talking about a very real and prestigious company.
Such attacks are carried out by both private scammers for profit and state-owned cybercrime groups. Last year, it was reported that North Korean hackers massively sent emails about bogus job openings and salary increases in order to infect victims ' computers with malware to steal cryptocurrencies.
Similar complaints were received from students at Harvard University and other large organizations. The FBI has also repeatedly warned of fraudulent job ads being used to divorce job seekers in Southeast Asia.
