I remember reading a similar article here not long ago, and the attack relied on auto-loading in VSCode.

I get enough legit and illegitimate ones every week on LinkedIn that it's become really easy to tell the difference. Hard to pinpoint in a comment because it's mostly a gut feeling. But, in rough order:

1. Look at the person's LinkedIn profile contacting you and examine their post history. In one comical scenario the "recruiter" had a long 4 year gap where they were writing comments in English and all of the sudden they switched to Spanish. Mostly short, pointless comments as well.

2. Look at the company and make sure they have a legitimate website and are still actually in business. Even better, see if there's a public team page that lists this person.

3. Give the recruiter an email (I usually use something like SimpleLogin) and ask them to forward you the details. Of course, pay close attention to what address they send it from.

4. In addition, or alternatively, ask the recruiter for the public job listing (scammers almost always "paste" it into a DM or upload a clearly AI generated PDF doc).

Once you learn the game it's not too hard to start picking up on them. I've made it a game to play along sometimes just for fun. Ultimately, at the end of the day, make sure you report them on LinkedIn. I've had the account disappear within a hour of doing so.

These seem like a common pattern lately. I feel for it but again people are creative in making business out of others desperation.