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pouyanrafieifard
Community Member

URGENT: I got hacked by an Upwork employer!!!

Hello Upwork community, 

 

I just got hacked by an Upwork employer. The employer has posted a project "Data Scientist" and I sent a proposal for that. Afterwards, they sent me a message with a link to their website. Sadly, I downloaded the attachment and opened it. Inside the Zip file, there was a file called requirements.scr which was apparently a trojan. My antivirus now shows that this file was a Trojan. 

 

I called the company who owns the website in Canada but apprently they don't know the person with this name. A look over their Linkedin profile also shows they have random employees from all over the world but nobody is working in construction business. 

 

I am shcoked that such thing can happen in Upwork!!!

 

I ask the Upwork business to locate this cybercriminal and report them to authorities. 

 

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

 

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
PradeepH
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Pouyan,

 

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about your experience with the client. I forwarded your report to the relevant team and I can confirm that the job has been taken down now. Also, the client has been suspended for violation of Upwork TOS.


Please check out this course for more tips on staying safe on Upwork and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

 

Thank you,

Pradeep

Upwork

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16 REPLIES 16
spectralua
Community Member

I hope you didn't run it after received? You must be careful with files opening. SCR is executabe Windows .exe binary.

I doubt that Upwork will inform the authorities. You can only count on the removal of a fraudulent vacancy here.

the-right-writer
Community Member

First, Upwork has employees, but the clients are not employed by Upwork. This is an independent client. Upwork can ban them from the platform, but they just use a different name and return.

 

Did you have a contract? Did they send the message through Upwork? If you were communicating through any source other than Upwork before a contract was in place, it is a violation of the Terms of Service and could cause you to lose your Upwork account.

 

It sounds like you downloaded an executable file. Upwork screens (to some extent) any files on the platform. I have never seen this kind of file in a client ad, but if you do, don't open it. Before I open a file through Upwork, I still run independent screens for malware, virus, bugs, etc.

 

Stay on the platform and do not communicate or exchange messages before a contract is in place. If you have any doubts at all, bring your questions to the forum.

 

No one is going to chase down a person for sending a virus. Upwork will ban them, but that's it. I don't know where you can report a virus, other than for data and use it for future programs. If the police chased everyone who sent a virus, they would do nothing else and still not get them all.

I agree with Jeanne.

 

This is something that you deal with yourself, or that you deal with on Upwork. And that's it.

 

It would be a waste of your time to contact government agencies or authorities.

 

It could be beneficial to you to hire professionals to help you clean up the problems on your own computer. But that is you enlisting help privately. The police or other government entities are not in the business of cleaning viruses off of your personal co outer or tracking down people who knowingly or unknowingly spread viruses to Upwork freelancers.

 

Upwork is not going to contact authorities.

PradeepH
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Pouyan,

 

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about your experience with the client. I forwarded your report to the relevant team and I can confirm that the job has been taken down now. Also, the client has been suspended for violation of Upwork TOS.


Please check out this course for more tips on staying safe on Upwork and please use the flag option found on each job post or message anytime you’d like to report a violation.

 

Thank you,

Pradeep

Upwork
sammad-yasser
Community Member

I can feel too much panic in your thread, things can be less dramatic than what you think,

 

Firstly, we never download attached Files in our Physical computer, there's something called Virtual Machines,

 

And even if you did so, not all of the time what your antivirus said is true,

 

Just because your Antivirus detect some assembly patterns, in the .src file, this does not mean, and in any occasion, that this .src File.

 

"...This Should not Happens on Upwork", They're called Upwork Employees, they're probably doing their best, and It's rare to be in such situation, this, assuming your thread were 100% accurate.'

6239d3cd
Community Member

ohh this is so unexpectable . i feel so sad for you .

deborah-ponzio
Community Member

What you can do is writing to the company whose name was unappropriately used and provide to them the data about this incident. They may decide to do something about it. 

re: "What you can do is writing to the company whose name was unappropriately used and provide to them the data about this incident. They may decide to do something about it."

 

I strongly advice people to never do this.

 

Writing to a company provides wastes your time and theirs.

 

All companies can have their names used by scammers. This happens. There is nothing they can do about it. But we don't need to waste their time by contacting them. Doing so provides no value.

Hello Preston, I have the opposite view on this. Companies may have an interest in such alerts as the fraudulent appropriation of their name may eventuate in reputational and commercial damage. 

Deborah:  You are a thoughtful and concientious person. I don't actually own a company whose name was used by scammers, and if I understand correctly, neither do you.

 

I'm sure we can both agree that the companies themselves are not to be blamed for scammers using their names.

 

It WOULD be interesting to hear from a representative of one of these companies, whose names have been used by scammers, to hear what they actually think. I suppose you and I are both just doing our best to imagine what they would prefer.

For the sake of discussion

 

I've worked for companies that have an interest in their name being used in conjunction with viruses/phishing attempts/hacks/etc.

They typically add these as examples into their company-wide cybersecurity training/emails.

Not every company does this, but I have seen a few that do.

In my market, companies such as utilities and other well-known brands are interested in such events as their names are often appropriated by rings of fraudsters, who act both in person (door-to-door) and via telecomms and the Internet. As a result, such companies often have to publicly communicate alerts to consumers and inform that they do not send door-to-door promoters, technicians etc., and that they did not share certain links via text or email. 

Preston, did you not pay attention to the firestorm that was the Muskian Twitter's launch of non-verified "Verified" badges? I'm not even on Twitter, and I heard how absurd it was and the fallout that it caused.

ccbee5c0
Community Member

That a cracker not a white hacker hacker not all hacker are bad people


Craig P wrote:

That a cracker not a white hacker hacker not all hacker are bad people


Did you mean to type "white hat hacker"? If not, that comment can only be construed as responding to a racist statement that never existed in this discussion.

Yes i mean white hacker are good and cracker are like scriptkiddies it the samething and it not a racest statement.

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