Recruiting in the Remote Work Era: How Carders Are Recruiting Talent Through Freelance Platforms and Gamified Learning Systems

[Professor]

Introduction: The War for Talent Goes Into the Shadows​

By 2026, the skills shortage has affected not only the legitimate IT industry but also cybercrime. Classic carding forums, where enthusiasts shared knowledge, have ceased to be the primary source of talent. Consolidated "shadow corporations" of CaaS 2.0 have begun conducting systematic, aggressive, and covert "headhunting," adopting the best practices of legitimate recruiting and HR tech. Their target audience is talented but disillusioned, financially vulnerable, or ethically flexible IT professionals from around the world, especially from regions with low incomes and high unemployment.

Part 1: Recruitment Channels – From Upwork to Game Chats​

Recruiters use legitimate platforms where technical specialists are concentrated, disguising job offers as regular orders.

1. Freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, Russian equivalents):
   • Disguised Job Postings: Carefully worded requests that comply with platform rules are posted: "Web application penetration testing specialist needed, payable in cryptocurrency," "Developing a captcha bypass system for scientific research," "Optimizing scripts for parsing public data."
   • Multi-stage selection: Candidates are given real, but ethically questionable, test tasks (for example, finding a vulnerability on a specially created training website). Those who successfully complete them without asking unnecessary questions are gradually introduced to the essence of the work through encrypted channels.
2. Cybersecurity Competition Platforms (CTF - Capture The Flag):
   • Talent scanning: Recruiters monitor the leaders of public CTF competitions, especially those from poor countries. Winners receive "offers to collaborate with a foreign startup" or "scholarships for further education" at closed, elite hacker academies, which are actually training centers for carding syndicates.
3. Gaming ecosystems (Discord, MMORPG game chats, eSports leagues):
   • Recruitment through guilds and clans: Large guilds in games like World of Warcraft or EVE Online (which already have complex in-game economies) employ recruiters. They seek players who demonstrate strategic thinking, leadership qualities, patience in the grind (monotonous work), and teamwork —all skills critical to modern carding operations.
   • Gamified approach: The offer is formulated as "an invitation to a more complex and profitable game" where you need to apply your skills to solve "puzzles" in the real world.
4. Social networks for professionals (LinkedIn, Habr Career):
   • Creating fake HR agencies and IT startups: Credible websites and profiles of "decoy" companies, often registered in offshore jurisdictions, are developed. They actively seek specialists in data science, machine learning, and rapid prototyping. During interviews, now over secure channels, the true nature of the work is revealed, with promises of earnings 5-10 times higher than the market.

Part 2: Gamification of Learning: From Onboarding to Career Development​

Hooked candidates aren't thrown into the deep end. They're guided through a complex, engaging training system built on game design principles.

1. Internal "Academies" and simulators:
   • New recruits gain access to an interactive learning platform similar to Coursera or Stepik. Courses are structured by difficulty level: "Beginner" (basic phishing, working with SOCKS5), "Specialist" (bypassing 2FA, deanonymization), and "Expert" (exploiting vulnerabilities in payment APIs, attacks on microservices).
   • Completing modules and passing tests awards internal "experience points" (XP) and "credits." This creates a sense of progress and engagement.
2. Practice in sandboxes and legal testing grounds:
   • To practice their skills, they don't use real banks, but rather exact replicas (mirrors) deployed on internal infrastructure, or specially created legitimate "victim" websites that offer bug bounties for vulnerabilities found. This minimizes the risks for the syndicate in the early stages and creates a false sense of legitimacy in the student.
3. The system of ranks, titles and "combat sorties":
   • Progress is visualized through a leveled-up avatar, a rank system (from "Recruit" to "Legend"), and leaderboards. Actual missions ("combat missions") are presented as quests with clear objectives, cryptocurrency rewards, and "medals" for difficulty.
   • PvP elements are introduced : competitions between teams of new recruits for the best result in a test attack.
4. Mentoring and community:
   • Each newcomer is assigned a "mentor"—an experienced carder who provides support, answers questions, and fosters a personal connection. Closed communities are created on messaging apps, fostering a culture of camaraderie, mutual support, and shared goals, effectively eliminating moral doubts.

Part 3: Monetization and Retention: The Loyalty Economy in a Criminal Organization​

To retain talent in a highly competitive environment, syndicates develop complex incentive systems.

1. Transparent reward system with "binary bonuses":
   • Revenue from each successful transaction is broken down according to a formula accessible to every participant. Referral programs and "binary" bonuses (similar to network marketing) for attracting new employees are being introduced, turning ordinary carders into active recruiters.
2. Social package and "care":
   • They offer "insurance" funds (to cover legal fees in case of failure or arrest), crypto "pension" schemes, and "options" for a share of the syndicate's profits. For particularly valuable employees, they organize relocation to "safe" jurisdictions and help with housing.
3. Ideological indoctrination and the "digital Robin Hood" narrative:
   • The narrative of a "war on the corrupt financial system," "restoring justice," and redistributing wealth is being actively cultivated. Attacks on large corporations and banks are presented as acts of resistance, which resonates particularly with the younger generation, disillusioned with traditional institutions.
4. Creating dependency and "golden handcuffs":
   • As a specialist's rank increases, they gain access to the syndicate's unique, exclusive tools and data. Their income and reputation become inextricably linked to the platform. Leaving the system means losing access to these resources and potentially facing exposure, as the organization stores incriminating information on all its members (transaction logs, personal data).

Part 4: Challenges for Society and Counter-Strategies​

This new approach to recruiting poses a fundamental threat by luring talent away from the legal sector.

1. Unmasking decoy vacancies: AI systems are needed to monitor freelance platforms, capable of identifying hidden patterns in job descriptions and customer behavior related to recruitment.
2. Competition based on values and opportunities: The legal sector should offer not just a salary, but a comparable level of excitement, rapid growth, freedom, and a sense of meaning. This could include the development of internal bug bounty programs, hackathons with significant prizes, and ethical hacking programs with career tracks.
3. Early prevention and education: Introducing modules on recruitment mechanisms and psychological manipulation used on the darknet into cybersecurity and IT ethics courses. Creating support programs for at-risk talent.
4. Legal Education: Clearly explain that working for a cybercriminal organization, even as a "mere coder" or "tester," makes the employee an accomplice and carries serious criminal penalties under the laws of most countries, including extradition.

Conclusion: The Battle for Minds and Identity​

Recruiting in the remote work era has shown that modern cybercrime is waging war not only against security systems but also for human capital. It is creating an alternative career universe with a clear hierarchy, quick rewards, a strong community, and a twisted yet attractive ideology.

Winning this battle with law enforcement alone is impossible. It requires a comprehensive response:

• Economic – creating worthy alternatives in the legal sector, especially in regions that provide personnel.
• Social – the formation of a new professional ethic in the IT environment, where cooperation with shadow structures will be considered not cool, but deeply shameful.
• Educational – cultivating resilience to manipulative narratives and understanding that the true value of talent lies in creation, not destruction.

The outcome of this struggle will determine whether the main stream of technological innovation in the next decade will flow toward strengthening our shared digital infrastructure or toward its total destabilization.