I don’t know about you but I hesitate to click on anything these days for fear of it being a trap set by hackers to steal my personal information. I realize that sounds paranoid but the traps are very comprehensive and, frankly, well constructed to convince me it is a legitimate request for information. The San Francisco Chronicle brought this news to us in their article, “That perfect job offer pitched on LinkedIn may be a cyberattack.”
However, hackers don’t always use sophisticated methods of baiting people into clicking on infected links or offering up personal identifying information. Sometimes it’s as simple as an appealing job posting on a legitimate professional career site like LinkedIn.
As more and more job applications and professional interactions move primarily online, so do cybercriminals looking to turn a profit. Cybersecurity experts have noticed hackers’ behavior shifting to a new trend; one where they are using fake job postings to lure people into giving up their full names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and more.
When cyberattacks pose as legitimate interactions, they can be difficult for companies to identify. Social media companies therefore tend to rely on user reports to root out fraudulent activity.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
