A Tulsa student looking for a career in health career found himself a cybercrime target via a fake job offer, according to a local news report.
Hunter Griffin, a 20-year-old who works as a part-time caregiver, told television station KJRH-TV that he responded to a job offer on the website Indeed.com.
“That’s all I’m trying to do, is find a job that I can survive on. That’s what I need. That was the goal.” Griffin told KJRH-TV reporter Sierra Pizarro.
The job seeker saw a listing on Indeed.com that appeared to be posted by a Tulsa medical clinic. Soon after Griffin responded, he saw a convincing text messages that seemed to be coming from the clinic.
“They did ask me about my work history,” He said. “They asked me general interview questions.”
“Laura Keep” at the other end of the interview process asked Griffin for his address, a W-4 form and copies of his ID.
Griffin called the medical clinic on Monday morning and found out he was being scammed.
“I really needed that job,” he said.
KJRH-TV interviewed Jeff Woods, president of Realize, who expressed sympathy for this and all cybercrime victims.
“A lot of people believe this can’t happen to me,” Woods said. “It can. It can happen to anybody.”
Woods said the problem has been getting more serious for several years.
‘Realize’ fighting cybercrime for years
“We surveyed 10 technology leaders and found that spoofing is seen as the top email threat for 2019,” he said. ““We are not only seeing an increasing number of spear phishing attacks, but the messages are getting more sophisticated and harder to detect.”
Woods added that people looking for work during the pandemic or working from home because of the pandemic may not know cybercriminals are taking advantage of the stress everyone feels.
“Cybercriminals exploit every chance to prey on Internet users,” he said. “We are receiving numerous alerts that hackers are attempting to exploit fear from the COVID-19 outbreak. We closely monitor our client antivirus notifications, and we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” he said.
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KJRH online article about fake job offer:
Fake job posting may have cost multiple Tulsans their identities
Screen captures from the original news report are © copyright 2021 Scripps Media, Inc.