News, 02/01/2023, 11:00 AM
Cybercrime is increasingly operating like any other business, and on the dark web programmers and hackers are offered jobs that guarantee a monthly salary, paid time off and paid sick days.
In the new one Kaspersky reportwhich analyzed 200,000 job postings posted on 155 darknet forums between March 2020 and June 2022, hacker groups and APT groups offer jobs mainly to software developers (61% of all postings).
The highest-paying job seen by Kaspersky analysts guarantees a monthly salary of $20,000, while ads for attack experts offer a maximum of $15,000 per month.
Hacker groups are also looking for data analysts, malware and tools developers, reverse engineering experts, web designers and phishing email designers, malware testers and IT administrators.
The average salary for IT professionals ranged between $1,300 and $4,000 per month. Designers earn the least, and reverse engineering specialists are the highest paid among those in the middle pay range.
A third of the job postings are for full-time positions, and the same number of postings are for jobs that allow for a flexible schedule.
In some cases (8%), workers were offered paid vacation and sick leave, which shows that some employers on the dark web care about making their offers as attractive as possible.
These offers are quite competitive compared to similar positions in the legal labor markets and could attract unemployed IT professionals or young IT graduates who are having trouble finding work.
“It should be noted that the risks associated with working for an employer on the dark web still outweigh the benefits,” warns Kaspersky, adding that not having “a legally concluded employment contract absolves employers of all responsibility.” The worker could therefore remain unpaid or implicated in fraud.
The largest number of ads were published during the first quarter of 2020, which coincides with the huge changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The second jump was recorded between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first three months of 2022.
As part of the recruitment process, cybercriminals recruiting new workers conduct test tasks designed to determine the candidate’s level of competence in the required field. In some cases, employers review the submitted resume or portfolio, and in the case of one out of four advertisements, an interview is conducted with the candidate.
Among the typical examples singled out by Kaspersky is a job ad in which candidates were promised to be paid around $300 in bitcoins for a test task.
Some software developers may see these jobs as a lifeline in difficult times of political unrest, weak economies, or the inability to find work in the countries where they live.
However, it is important to understand the potential risks of working for an employer on the dark web, and this practically means that those who are thinking about such jobs must count on the fact that they can be involved in fraud, that they themselves can be deceived, arrested, prosecuted and end up spending part of his life behind bars.
Cover photo: Reynaldo #brigworkz Brigantty, Pexels
