• • Author, Joe Tidy
  • Author’s Title, Cyber Correspondent, BBC World Service
• Publication Date
• Reading time: 3 min

Job seekers are warned to be on the lookout, as scammers are trying to trick people on job listing websites into downloading fake interview tools.

One victim was invited on LinkedIn by a supposed recruiter to participate in a job interview process and downloaded a seemingly normal document that turned out to be malware.

Within hours, the hackers emptied their cryptocurrency accounts, stealing the equivalent of nearly $25,000 in savings, and vanished.

“It’s a horrible feeling to lose such a large sum—something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” said the victim, who preferred to remain anonymous.

A Saturated and Competitive Job Market

The professional recruitment platforms LinkedIn and Indeed have warned of the growing number of job scams in recent months.

LinkedIn published data highlighting what it called Generation Z’s “scam gap”: “Younger professionals face the highest exposure to scams (32%), but nearly a third (32%) admit to ignoring the warning signs due to a competitive job market.”

When contacted by the BBC, the company stated that, in a saturated and competitive job market, “many young people feel they cannot afford to be skeptical… because they perceive opportunities to be very scarce.”

The platform noted that it offers advice on its website about how to spot recruitment scams, such as verifying that the company and the job opening are legitimate and conducting thorough research before entering into discussions.

The person who lost their savings after falling victim to a cyberattack had resigned from their job and made it clear on LinkedIn that they were looking for a new job.

A supposed recruiter sent them a potential job offer and held a video call to discuss the position before asking them to take a standard technical assessment, following the instructions in the Google Sheets document.

After completing the task, the candidate went to sleep and, upon waking up, discovered that their digital wallets were empty.

“I cleaned my computer, changed all my passwords, and was emotionally and mentally exhausted,” he said.

“I felt a mix of disbelief and anger—both toward the hackers and toward myself. I was also confused until I understood how I’d been tricked.”

Fake Recruiters and Malicious Apps

Cybersecurity researchers at Have I Been Squatted, a platform dedicated to combating cyber piracy, analyzed how the attack worked and warn that the new wave of recruitment scams is difficult to detect.

"This wasn’t a poorly written email with a suspicious attachment; this person was guided through what appeared to be a real job interview, on real Google pages, behind a real Google login, and the software they were asked to install was digitally signed just like any legitimate app,” explained CEO Juxhin D Brigjaj.

This case comes at a time when others have reported similar attacks via the job listing platform Indeed, which in July published tips on how to avoid scams.

Criminals are exploiting the pressure and excitement of job interviews to trick people into downloading malicious mobile apps, such as a fake app called “Indeed Interview” or one called “MyInterview.”

According to the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, fake recruiters use lures such as: “Complete your interview by installing the Indeed app” or “Salary offer available after installing the app.”

Once downloaded, these malicious apps allow hackers to access private data for extortion or to use it in financial attacks.

“Interviews through the Indeed platform are conducted entirely in a browser and never require the download of a special app,” Indeed recently posted online.

“Any message asking a job seeker to download an app to participate in an interview is not legitimate.”

This article was originally written in English, and we used an AI tool to translate it. A BBC journalist reviewed the text before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.

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