Since career fair season is finally over, many of us are in the process of applying for jobs and evaluating employment offers. This is a very important time period to make sure we stay cyber aware.

A news report by Erica Murphy stated that 29% of people responding to a survey were scammed while looking for employment. This data reportedly came from the AI-based cybersecurity platform, Trend Micro. Employment scams are on the rise from both fake job listings to fake applicants.

The National Cybersecurity Alliance has a list of tips to help keep job hunters safe online:

• Research the company: Search for the company name, and if multiple sites come up, then something might be off. Before entering information into a site, analyze the webpage and look for things like small discrepancies, typos or strange addresses. If something looks off then do not enter your information, and contact the company using information from the primary webpage.
• Never pay to play: If the job posting or contacts require sending cash around, like money orders, prepaid cards or checks, then you can assume some type of fraud is going on. If you are sent paper checks with instructions to purchase items or transfer money, then there is likely fraud happening. Another red flag is requests to move communication to an encrypted messaging app, like Signal or Telegram. Do not provide sensitive information until you are certain of who you are talking to.
• Treat your personal information like cash: Personally identifiable information (PII) is information that can identify you specifically and is contained on documents such as your passport, drivers license, social security card and bank or credit card information. Legitimate employers will only ask for this information after a job contract has been signed. Before entering any of this information in a website, carefully evaluate the site and the employer.

Legitimate employers will only handle PII through legitimate platforms such as Workday and HireRight. If you receive requests for sending PII through email or video conference, then you should strongly reconsider the legitimacy of the request. This information can be used to steal your identity. When in doubt, request to complete onboarding activities at a local office, if there is one close enough to travel to, or on your first day of employment. 

Prior to 2020, most employers conducted in-person verification of documents containing PII for the I-9 employment authorization. Completing I-9 authorization is a requirement for employment in the US, but citizenship is not a requirement.

Advancements in AI technology have made deepfakes hard to distinguish from real people. Deepfakes are AI-manipulated media that seem like a real person saying or doing something. This technology reminds us to follow the rule of thumb for banks: never give out any information to someone who calls you on the phone and only give information over the phone after using a number that is on your card or the main bank website.

Last year Trend Micro published an article on spotting deepfakes. Some of the tips include remaining skeptical, not oversharing online and reporting suspected deepfakes to authorities. Some of the things you can do to help spot these include asking questions that only the real person knows, or referencing a fake event or made up friend to see their response. Over-sharing information online arms scammers with important details that allows them to pass off as  people you might know.

If you think you can spot a deepfake of someone you know, think again! A Hong Kong business lost $25 million after an employee transferred money based upon a video call with the CFO and other executives which turned out to be digital replicas.

Identity theft is using someone else’s personal information for fraudulent purposes. According to Trend Micro, some of the ways criminals obtain personal information include data breaches, stolen wallets/purses, unsecured wifi, social media and phishing scams from emails or website requests like job offers.

Some of the things criminals can do with someone’s identity include finance and tax fraud, medical insurance fraud, employment fraud and other crimes. These include filing taxes to claim your refund, applying for new credit/loans/utility accounts, draining your bank account and making unauthorized purchases on your legitimate accounts.

What can we do to reduce our chances of identity theft? Trend Micro has some tips for us.

Think before you click, or share information online or with anyone you do not know well. Scammers do not only contact you through electronic means, they will also walk up to you in real life. Watch your mail for regular mail that is missing or a change of address notice. Regularly review your bank statements and credit report for unauthorized charges or new accounts.

Take time to evaluate job offers and the sites you apply on. Search your name to see if any criminal records show up. When you find a job on LinkedIn, look for the same job on the company’s home page. I have found many jobs on LinkedIn that are not on the company webpage. 

For our software engineering and computer science majors, there is another piece of the job interview you need to be cautious about. When you are sent code to work on and show your skills, there could be malware or a virus in it.

Scan the files you are given before opening and read every line of code before you run it to ensure it is not going to download stuff on your computer. Infecting these packages is one technique scammers use to get access to your personal and professional information.

Let’s make it hard for scammers to get our identity and stay cyber aware!