LinkedIn Scammers Step Up Sophistication of Online Attacks (ft.com) 22
LinkedIn has been hit by a rise in sophisticated recruitment scams, as fraudsters seek to take advantage of the trend towards remote working and widespread lay-offs across the tech sector. From a report: Jobseekers on the world's largest professional network are being defrauded out of money after taking part in fake recruitment processes set up by scammers who pose as employers, before obtaining personal and financial information. "There's certainly an increase in the sophistication of the attacks and the cleverness," Oscar Rodriguez, vice-president of product management at LinkedIn told the Financial Times "We see websites being set up, we see phone numbers with a seemingly professional operator picking up the phone and answering on the company's behalf. We see a move to more sophisticated deception," he added.
The warning comes as the Microsoft-owned social media company said it has sought to block tens of millions of fake accounts in recent months, while US regulators warn of an increase in jobs-related cons. Last month, cyber security company Zscaler revealed a scam that targeted jobseekers and a dozen US companies, where fraudsters approached people through LinkedIn's direct messaging feature InMail. Scammers identified businesses that were already hiring, including enterprise software company Zuora, software developer Intellectsoft and Zscaler itself. They then created "lookalike" websites with similar job ads and, via LinkedIn's InMail feature, invited jobseekers to enter personal information into the websites, before conducting remote interviews via Skype.
The warning comes as the Microsoft-owned social media company said it has sought to block tens of millions of fake accounts in recent months, while US regulators warn of an increase in jobs-related cons. Last month, cyber security company Zscaler revealed a scam that targeted jobseekers and a dozen US companies, where fraudsters approached people through LinkedIn's direct messaging feature InMail. Scammers identified businesses that were already hiring, including enterprise software company Zuora, software developer Intellectsoft and Zscaler itself. They then created "lookalike" websites with similar job ads and, via LinkedIn's InMail feature, invited jobseekers to enter personal information into the websites, before conducting remote interviews via Skype.
Linkedin has always been a scam (Score:4, Informative)
Linkedin has always been a scam. It should be avoided, there are better ways to do things.
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I have a free account there because one of my current employers wants that. I never do anything with it though.
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Re:Linkedin has always been a scam (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure what you're talking about. My last two jobs I got because of my LinkedIn profile. What "better ways" are you suggesting "things" could be done?
Masturbation (Score:2)
Been that way for a while... (Score:5, Informative)
I saw a fairly sophisticated linked-in scam a few years ago. I got a connection request from an executive of a high-profile competitor to my company. This person was listed as having been connected to other people I knew at the company (likely because they had previously been targeted). The executive was a real person based on publicly available information and it was totally plausible that I might have been contacted for a job by them. The photo and Linked-in bio was consistent with the real person. However, things started smelling fishy when they asked me if I was interested in a high-level role that had absolutely nothing to do with my area of expertise and didn't respond when asked for an explanation for why they thought I might be a fit. Eventually, it became clear that t it was an impostor account and the whole thing was fake.
I assume at some point the scammer would have asked me to give up personally identifiable information and/or send some sort of money had I not caught on before that point. But in any event, it took a few rounds of back and forth before it was clear it was a scam. I can totally see how this fake account could have gotten some people.
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One thing that makes me wonder: Why would you send money to a prospective employer? Is this a thing in the US?
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No, it's not, and I can't imagine why someone would, even someone desperate. How is it any different from the Nigerian Prince scam but with a fake job instead of a fake royal fortune?
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Thanks for the clarification.
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It's certainly not normal, and it would have been a big waiving red flag if they had. But I can see desperate people falling for something.
It wouldn't be a straight-up demand for cash. More likely something like a request to use their "travel agent" to book interview travel (with an illusory promise that the company would reimburse the expense). That's not totally crazy, as I have had to pay travel expenses up-front for job interviews that were later reimbursed. One actually did offer to let me use their tr
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That does make sense. Thanks.
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You never know. The father of a friend of mine jumped to another company after 30 years and just 4 years until planned retirement at his old company. They offered him a boat load of money and allowed him to vest in their pension if he worked there for 5 years. So he worked an extra year and snagged a second pension (he was already fully vested and retirement eligible to retire at his first company).
meh (Score:1)
They need to listen to user-submitted reports (Score:1)
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I've done the same, with obvious fraudsters. One was in Hong Kong (supposedly) and needed money to get out, when I said I was unemployed, etc they suddenly were rich and wanted to send me money.
I reported it, but this scammer had a premium profile they paid Microsoft $$$ so the security check came back "They did nothing wrong." or some such corporate piffle. The scammers pay for a premium profile, so Microsoft is happy--GTFM get the f*cking money is their credo.
JoshK.
LinkedIn has been very good to me (Score:1)
I have had four employers in the past decade or so, and every single one of them had LinkedIn involvement in landing the job. But none of those jobs required me sending recruiters money and I'm seriously wondering why anyone would. It sounds exactly like "if you send me the transaction fee of $XX then I will send you $XXX Million". I thought people knew better by now, but apparently not?
I got scammed by LI... (Score:2)