Job Seekers, Stay Alert From Cyber Criminals as Hiring Season Opens

As we emerge from COVID-19, the economic consequences of the pandemic are still with us. The unemployment rate is around 6% and millions of Americans are reentering the job market. This is why an explosion of cyber scams targeting job seekers has become a crisis, explains Matt Lindley, COO and CISO, NINJIO. From fake offers of remote work to schemes that use people as conduits for stolen money or items, there have never been more threats to job seekers.

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting job seekers with fake offers of employment to steal their money and personal data. There was a significant influx of these crimes during the pandemic, and cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of the economic uncertainty that will persist for the foreseeable future. As with the vast majority of cyberattacks, job scammers rely on their ability to manipulate victims and convince them to divulge compromising information – a tactic known as social engineering. 

Job scams exploit people who are already anxious about paying the bills and providing for their loved ones as we emerge from the worst public health crisis in a century. This is why people need to be on their guard against cyberattacks like never before – it’s much easier to fall for a scam when it offers a job or supplemental income that millions of people desperately need right now. If job-seekers observe a few basic cybersecurity fundamentals, they’ll be able to avoid becoming victims at a time when a cyberattack could be especially devastating. 

How Job-Seekers Have Become Targets

Many factors have conspired to make job scams increasingly pervasive and harmful. According to data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reports of fraudulent job offers have been steadily rising for years. Meanwhile, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Risk Index rankedOpens a new window employment scams as the riskiest type of fraud on the basis of “exposure, susceptibility, and monetary loss.” 

As if the situation wasn’t dire enough, the BBB reports that almost three-quarters of the victims of job scams already have financial difficulties and aren’t capable of covering their bills, while more than half weren’t employed at the time they were targeted. The COVID-19 pandemic made the epidemic of job scams even worse, with cybercriminals posing as employers hiring for remote work positions, asking people to reship stolen items, offering fake investment opportunities, or using victims as money mulesOpens a new window to transfer funds that were acquired illegally. 

All of this amounts to more than 16,000 people who were victims of employment scams in 2020, with total losses of almost $60 million (according to dataOpens a new window from the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3). And these are just the incidents that were reported – there are many more scams that haven’t come to light. To bring these colossal numbers down, it’s necessary to know which red flags to watch out for and how to avoid falling for a type of cyberattack that’s only going to become more common in the coming years. 

Why Job Scams Are so Effective 

Picture a job seeker who has been unemployed (or partially employed) since early 2020, when thousands of companies cut jobs, reduced hours, and slashed benefits for millions of workers in the U.S. Over just six months in 2020, 60 millionOpens a new window Americans filed for unemployment benefits – more than the entire Great Recession – while the unemployment rate surgedOpens a new window to almost 15 percent. Our job seeker may have a child at home or rent coming due, and as his or her savings disappear, the need to find new work is becoming more pressing every day. 

Cybercriminals know there’s a huge pool of people who would jump at the opportunity to earn some extra cash – and many would jump even higher for a full-time job. This is why scammers are able to convince victims that strange hiring “practices” – such as demands for personally identifiable information (PII) and personal data or large application/training fees – are a normal part of the process. And as remote work remainsOpens a new window in high demand, cybercriminals will continue to leverage this fact by offering phony remote work opportunities that promise flexible hours and high pay. 

There are many notorious job scams: from fake headhunters offering to find someone a job and disappearing with their money to scammers pretending like a great job is available if applicants will just send sensitive information like bank account or credit card numbers. There are so many scams offering government jobs that agencies like the U.S. Postal Service have released public service announcementsOpens a new window to warn Americans about them. 

Despite the ever-multiplying ways for cybercriminals to steal job-seekers’ money and identities, anyone is capable of preventing these attacks from being successful. 

How To Protect Yourself From Employment Scams

1. Conduct independent research on the entity that’s offering a job: Scammers often go to great lengths to convince job-seekers that their operations are legitimate from official-looking communications to the creation of dummy websites. This is why you should always verify the authenticity of a company by conducting research on independent sites, especially government agencies that monitor fraudulent activity. 

2. Never pay to be considered for a job: Cybercriminals will offer a range of reasons why they’re asking for money during the hiring process, but you shouldn’t trust any of them. When legitimate employers want to conduct a background check or administer a test, they’ll do so with their own resources. 

3. Be careful with what you share on social media: Cybercriminals often leverage information posted online to convince victims that they’re seriously being considered for certain jobs. While savvy job-seekers will know how to spot a ploy to get their attention with offers of work that sound too good to be true, there’s no reason to give scammers extra ammunition to make their social engineering attacks more compelling. Social media users shouldn’t just be circumspect about what they share, they should also make their accounts private to block prying eyes. 

4. Always confirm that you’re sending PII or other sensitive materials to a legitimate company or recipient: This can be done by contacting a reputable organization through its official communication channels. Applicants should also be wary of job offers that don’t involve an in-person interview. At the very least, they should expect a phone call, many job scams take place via text or email only. 

Finally, job-seekers should use their common sense when investigating potential employment. Does the pay make sense for the role? Are they qualified? Why is the “company” asking them to do something unorthodox in the application process? Does it seem like the “company” is behaving in a coercive or strangely urgent way? When applicants get into the habit of asking these questions of every potential employer, they’ll avoid all the scammers out there as they search for their next real job.