Here I will educate on how deceptive cyber criminals are and what you can look out for. I've encountered many scams over the years that used various forms of social engineering, but in recent times, you will be floored to see the methods used. Tenacity is their main weapon. I have spoken in the past about prior attempts I encountered in my experimentation, and as a client. The world of Cybersecurity is said to be wide open for employment opportunities. I haven't see this personally, as I only get job rejections and see rare postings, but in honesty, the field has to be wide open, because the criminals are more psychotic and maniacal than ever. The level of robotic sociopathic behavior they will exhibit will blow you away, to the point you actually refuse to believe
Recently, I was contacted on What'sApp by an individual proposing a part time and full-time opportunity. I had never heard of the person, and no clear entity was given at first. Being that I've been searching for remote work for some time, I decided to look into it. I recently encountered a few fools on Facebook pretending to sell trailers and cars to loop people into account stealing scams. I could go on for hours about the many scams I confronted people on. What you will find interesting is how dogmatic and forceful they are. They will argue about the merit and legitimacy of the business, even attacking you, for hours or even days, simply hoping that you break down eventually and take the bait.
I was told I would get contact from a superior afterward with details about the job. I always tell companies, including the lender I used for my trailer, that legitimate companies have to take care to have very good ethical compliance when dealing with customer information and transactions, so as not to mirror the behavior of cyber criminals. I said the same thing to these people. I found out that the company is BandCamp music apparently, and I didn't see much in the way of research. I was told I submit tasks for increasing visibility of music for artists. Oddly, the page I was directed to had a balance already in an account, and you clicked a button to assign the task, then you get a fraction of the amount generated. It was just as convoluted as it sounds. The records that showed were old pop records that had their play almost a decade ago from artists like John Legend and Adele. It looked very suspicious.
I made a login, and then for some reason, my trainer had me log into their account to complete their tasks. I then asked about training, and was told it isn't needed, which was odd because I thought that's what we were doing according to the instructions given at the outset. I was then ordered to go back to my account and complete the same kinds of tasks. After I was done, I was said to have accumulated money that I could extract to my account. This is where I got really interested, and as you can see in the dialogue I captured, I began to question to see if they would quit while they were ahead. I explained my knowledge of cyber security, and the comical condescending tone that she took was breathtaking. You can see by her dialogue, that no matter what red flags I exposed, until she was in handcuffs, I was nothing but a stupid fool and potential victim to her, regardless of the awareness I clearly showed to her. That's when I became really aware of the sociopath personality these people have. They are trained to be like pit bulls that bite and scratch until they succeed. All humanity stripped away.
They stated that for security, they used crypto currency. I was then instructed to provide my crypto address. This required me to open a new crypto wallet, as PayPal's is now down due to a merge issue with Europe. I set up my account and linked the address, but was required to do more tasks. Below, you can see screenshots of the experience. You'll notice a staff level next to your icon. Apparently, this raises as you complete these tasks of pressing a green button that assigns a song to a list. The person guiding me was apparently from Germany, according to them. If you look at the layout, it makes no sense. And what I found interesting is that my trainer/manager, or whatever she was, thanked me for helping her complete her tasks, when I completed the training that wasn't training. After I had exhausted my tasks, I tried to get more, and was told that I have to deposit at least 100USD in order to reset my task counter on my portal so I could click the green button more to earn cash. I was instructed to contact Customer Service each time I needed to do this reset, which itself is a huge red flag and quite stupid. I'm reasoning the entire time with this person, explaining to her that it only made things more odd with her denying how bad the layout and protocol looked to an observer. Take a look at the captures below and study them.
I really wanted to cut off and block the person, but for studying purposes, I resisted, because I really wanted to see how far they were willing to go. The site itself is not very impressive. You can put together those pages and layouts today in minutes with the templates that exist out there. What was impressive is the slide show that she was willing to fabricate and lie through for hours. This made the clown who pretended to be a house wife looking to sell me a car on Facebook for over a day, look like child's play. They have carefully written scripts typing confidently about percentages of return and remuneration etc. It's designed to intimidate and confuse. By the time they ramble on for hours, you will be convinced that it is lunacy for it to be a scam at that point. And that's exactly what they want you to think. When I pointed out the factors that made it a scam and put them before her, she went on for over an hour, livid at the claim and acting as if I was crazy, even stating that she was well aware of the penalties of cyber criminal activity and would never be so stupid as to participate. This is how disrespectful these clowns are. Until you lock them up, you are nothing but a stupid clown to them.
Eventually, the punchline I kept asking for came. I was told that each account needs to have a 100USD balance - which is a crypto equivalent, in order to be reset with tasks. This amount was the responsibility of the worker, who would then receive that money on the back end as revenue when they submit tasks going forward. So basically, you are paying to work, and they promise you'll get money on the back end. That's the point where I had enough intel, and I could assess and display how these criminals have advanced over the past decade. They are constantly finding new ways to drop the guards of their victims, even if it means running a marathon in the other direction. Even robbing you for a penny is worth it to these idiots, because they do it for the thrill and the bigger picture. I was chased for months by QuickStar Productions to scam me for $75 with a campaign for a fraudulent music release that did not exist out of a Maryland office that did not exist. Today, they are willing to make their efforts more elaborate and diligent, even trying to use some legitimate sources in the process. Be on the aler to the individuals.
Many of these idiot companies overlook my resume, shred it, send me a rejection letter, and hire trained monkeys to pick up their phones and drool on their keyboards. But if people were really about security and awareness, they would be looking for who can uncover attacks like this and save potentially millions of dollars. Let this be a lesson. Who of your applicants is putting together a knowledge base like this on their own, due to having a passion for the field? Jokatech
