ONLINE scammers are hoping to make a buck from people affected by the economic credit crunch.
In a report released last Friday, information security firm Symantec said that online scammers are milking job-seekers' worst fears - such as the dreaded rejection letter - to infect their computer system with a virus.
Spammers, said Symantec's manager for systems engineering Avinash Lotke, traditionally try to convince users to read their junk mail by camouflaging it as a special offer or a message from a contact. Letters related to potential employment are a prime target in the current economic climate, he said.
There is also a psychological aspect to it, Mr Lotke added, as job-seekers will be loathed to delete such messages even if they look like junk mail.
Those who decide to read the e-mail may be urged to click on an attached file to find out how to improve their chances at the next interview. Opening this file plants a virus. Some viruses will send out more messages via e-mail applications, while others try to get information like credit card details.
Besides the rejection letter, scammers are also preying on financially strapped users via 'business' scams. One tries to con users into signing up as a freelance blog contributor, said Mr Lotke. Users reading the message are told that a blog is paying a generous US$45 (S$68) an hour to write some simple articles.
Those interested are directed to a slick website where they are asked to enter personal details, including their bank and credit card information so payment can be made. These details are then peddled off to other spammers or scammers.
Ms Lynnette Lee has encountered both scams and almost fell for the latter last month. The 26-year-old, who graduated with a finance degree last year and has been looking for a job, 'reads every e-mail even when it looks like spam just in case. I've become quite good at identifying job scams'. Even so, she said, she almost got suckered by the blog-for-money scam because it 'sounded believable, and maybe I wanted to believe it was true too'.
Job prospects look grim. A Ministry of Manpower spokesman said the numbers of jobless Singaporeans grew from 56,100 last September to 69,900 in December.
