Webwyrm network: how Chinese scammers robbed thousands of unemployed people

The applicants paid a price for their naivete in work, money, and time.

An international criminal network that is allegedly connected to China has been discovered by cybersecurity firm CloudSEK. Scammers in this network profit from the gullibility of job seekers all over the world. More than 100,000 people and 1,000 businesses have already been impacted by the "Webwyrm" scam, which has the potential to cost more than $100 million.

Fraudsters specifically mention job search and recruiting portals as sources of victims' contacts when communicating with potential victims via WhatsApp and Telegram. More than 50 nations have been affected by the scheme, with the UK, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and India being the most specifically targeted. The FBI and other international law enforcement agencies received information from researchers after they discovered evidence linking the threats to China. The scam's progression can be seen here:

• Messages offering a job with a weekly salary are sent to victims. According to the message, candidates can earn the salary and benefits by completing 80–120 tasks per day.
• Victims are required to make a deposit on specific cryptocurrency platforms, like KuCoin or Shakepay. At the same time, the con artists guarantee that after the task is finished, the platform will refund the money plus the commission.
• When the offer is accepted, the scam victims are then taken to the fake company's website. Over 6,000 fake websites have been found by researchers.
• Victims are informed that they can complete "combo tasks" for higher pay than standard tasks. However, victims must deposit twice as much money as they did the previous time in order to complete each new combo task.
• Money cannot be withdrawn from the account until all of the combo tasks have been finished, which must be done consecutively. Here's the catch, though. The victims become trapped after a few days and are unable to finish the streak. Victims lose all of their money despite making every effort to complete the tasks necessary to recover their money.

When attempting to contact the person who initially contacted them on WhatsApp, victims were threatened for not completing assigned tasks and warned that their account would be frozen if they did not deposit more money. Victims end up getting locked out of the website and all their money disappears.