A new report from cybersecurity solutions provider Heimdal Security revealed that finance and IT are the industries most targeted by job scammers.
Employment scams are nothing new, but as technology like artificial intelligence advances, career experts have seen more scammers try to take advantage of job seekers. Job scams ranked among the top five most common scams last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. They’re also costly for consumers, with a median loss of more than $2,000 in 2023.
The growth in remote work also leaves people more vulnerable, career experts say.
Heimdal analyzed 2,670 social media posts and comments from victims in 2023 and 2024 in order to highlight common scam tactics, targeted industries, and key red flags of scams that job seekers should know.
“We collected stories from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Reddit, where people raised alerts to prevent others from enduring similar experiences and sought advice from those who had gone through the same situation,” Heimdal says in the report.
According to Heimdal, the finance industry accounts for 35.45% of job scams, followed by IT at 30.43% and healthcare with 15.41%.
Why is finance at the top of the list of the most targeted industries? The report says:
This could be due to the recent layoffs in the finance sector, like those reported by Forbes —where financial and tech companies cut 39,000 jobs in early 2024 — which have made the job market more competitive.
This increased competition means finance professionals are more likely to consider job offers, even from less familiar companies. Scammers exploit this urgency by crafting credible-looking offers.
Another reason could be that scammers target finance professionals to gain access to sensitive financial data, such as client information, bank details, and internal systems.
By using fake job offers, scammers might trick these individuals into revealing valuable data, which could then be used for breaches or sold on the dark web.
Additionally, they could collect personal information to impersonate these professionals in future scams, open fraudulent accounts, or carry out unauthorized transactions.
With over 330,000 business impersonation scams reported by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2023, many of these scams likely rely on harvested data to appear more credible.
Other key insights from the report include:
- As for the location, 43% of the job scam posts mentioned remote positions, 42% were onsite, and 15% were hybrid.
- Most job scams target leading roles: managers (35%), followed by entry-level (34%), senior (13%), and midlevel roles (18%).
- Email is the most common contact medium, accounting for 30.75% of the analyzed data. Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter) follows with 20.19%, websites 19.79%, phone calls 12.85%, and SMS with 1.19%.
- The top three job scam characteristics are suspicious contact information (41.1%), unrealistic salary offers (25.7%), and misleading job descriptions (10.6%). Promises of easy money (10.1%), upfront payment requests, unprofessional language, unpaid work, vague company details, and urgency in the application process were also noted in the analyzed data.
- A vast number of victims said they reported the scams to authorities (45.45%), while 36.36% confronted the scammer and 18.18% didn’t take action, but they posted their experience on social media to increase awareness.
- Most of the victims experienced financial loss (55.91%) and identity theft (21.51%), while 21% succeeded in detecting the scam early or didn’t experience any harm.
- The analyzed data shows that victims experienced distress (35.29%), anxiety (23.53%), anger (9.41%), or other emotional responses (helplessness, regret).
- The most common red flags were requests for upfront payments (25.08%), phishing attempts (18.81%), requests for confidential information (17.49%), no interview processes (15.84%), fake job offers (12.21%), and poorly written job descriptions (10.56%).
- The most recommended strategies to avoid scams included checking reviews (26.96%), verifying company information (22.87%), consulting with friends (19.46%), verifying email domains (16.38%), and checking company websites (14.34%).
“Scammers have become incredibly sophisticated, especially with the rise of generative AI, which allows them to mimic real recruiters almost perfectly. They prey on emotional vulnerabilities, making it harder than ever to differentiate genuine job offers from fake ones. It’s clear that job platforms are struggling to keep up with the growing number of scammers,” Valentin Rusu, PhD, lead machine learning engineer at Heimdal Security, said in a statement. “That’s why job seekers must adopt a cybersecurity-first mindset—approach every email and job offer with caution. Verify email domains, check company websites, read reviews, and consult with trusted friends before proceeding. And most importantly, never disclose personal information unless you’re absolutely certain of the company’s legitimacy.”
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Tags: Accounting, Human Resources, Payroll, Security, Technology
