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Scammers are at it again, and this time they are using a LinkedIn job offer scam. From available information, this is a two-way scam and malware attack on jobseekers and then progresses to stealing their victims’ personal information. Mainly, the target for scammers using this method are social media managers.
According to the sources of this information, social media managers in regions like the US, the UK, and India are the big fishes. If any within this niche and regions are desperately looking for a new job handling larger social media accounts, then they might fall for this one. These scammers are posting on LinkedIn as large tech firms out to hire a new social media manager to just steal information.
Little known to their unsuspecting victims that the job they just applied for is not a real job. Instead, it’s just a window to let these scammers gain access to the social media accounts these victims currently control. Here’s all you need to know about this new scam and how you can stay safe from the attacks.
Applying for these LinkedIn job offer scams will only lead to more damage to victims
Well, the main aim of these LinkedIn scam job offers is to execute malware. This malware is hidden within documents that the scammers then send to the scam job applicants. Once opened, these documents will release the malware they hold, like RedLine Infostealer or DarkGate.
The job of these harmful files is to steal information on the job applicants’ social media accounts. With this the scammers can then access any social media account these users manage, both personal and official. From here, they can have access to more victims who already trust the existing businesses that these social media managers control.
The malware planted in these LinkedIn job offer scams doesn’t only steal social media information. They can also steal bank information, allowing the bad actor to make away with the victim’s money. This calls for alertness on the part of netizens so that they can protect themselves from these attacks.
Scammers are not just coming up with this scam, as it is one of the old ones in the books. However, it might be resurfacing because it’s seeing some success as unsuspecting users are falling for it around the world. It’s resurfacing in recent times might also be a result of the influx of social media managers on LinkedIn in recent times.
Whatever the case may be, netizens need to be on guard while applying for jobs. Before applying for any job on LinkedIn, be sure to check if the company is hiring via their official website. LinkedIn will also need to step up and fish out these scam job offerings on their platform and take them down.