What do cybercriminals care about?

Most often it’s personal data – PESEL number, identity document number, parents’ names, with which it is possible to, for example: extort credit or hack into online banking and clean out your account. In the case of recruitment offers, which have been hitting IT professionals en masse lately – they’re counting on clicks to make money. That’s for starters. The offer involves testing new tools or optimizing new products, and you getting paid in the form of Tether cryptocurrency (USDT). To complete the tasks, you need to create an account. And everything on the surface looks fine. Well, maybe the rates are much more favorable but, after all, you want to make quick and easy money… After completing the task, it turns out that you can earn even more. In order to unlock further opportunities to earn, it is necessary to contact the technical department. At this stage there is a request to transfer a small amount via your bank account with a commission left to yourself.

This will guarantee you even more money and… the status of a financial mule, i.e. a person who transfers money to another person (digitally or in cash), received from a third party, for which he receives a commission. The whole fraud process is step-by-step and quite complex, and the goal of cybercriminals is to launder money. Yes, you can inadvertently take part in money laundering, and this carries legal and financial consequences for you – you might end up on the blacklist of credit and banking information. This is quite a sophisticated scam, but it turns out to be effective. Criminals even go as far as to use the brands of well-known IT companies or recruitment agencies!

Never act under time pressure. Calmly and carefully read the message. Scammers take advantage of the weaknesses of social media – they send messages and impersonate familiar people to lull alertness, so check the sender. The name seems fine, the photo is quite similar, but you haven’t received any messages from this messenger until now? This is the first warning signal. Is there a link attached to the message, that you should click on if you want to learn more? Don’t do it.

If you are not sure that you are being addressed by a person with whom you have been in contact before, and someone who is impersonating a familiar name or company – check this by contacting the familiar person through previously used communication channels, call the said company to see if such an offer is indeed coming from them. Organizations have established channels of communication with, for example, potential candidates in the recruitment process.

You can always check RITS Professional Services recruitment offers HERE. And if you need to take care of your company’s cyber security – we are ready for that with our teams of IT professionals.