Full Stack developer Valentyn Herasymenko shared a story on his LinkedIn about a suspicious interview that turned out to be an attempt to run malware on his computer under the guise of a technical skills test.
Full Stack developer Valentyn Herasymenko shared a story on his LinkedIn about a suspicious interview that turned out to be an attempt to run malware on his computer under the guise of a technical skills test.
According to the developer, he was offered an interview and given access to a private repository on GitHub (MMChainvex account), which allegedly related to crypto games and the GameFi direction. However, the course of the conversation immediately raised reservations.
"The interviewer insisted on urgently raising the project locally right during the call. He turned off the camera and refused to give his contacts," said Valentyn Herasymenko.
The IT specialist refused to run someone else’s code on his own device, after which the repository was immediately deleted, and all public projects disappeared from the account.
Valentyn explains that the purpose of such "technical tasks" is to gain access to the developer’s confidential data, including crypto wallets, browser passwords, SSH keys, and authentication tokens.
"In such "test" projects, malicious code is often hidden in npm install scripts, in configs (tailwind, vite, next), or in VS Code tasks that are launched when a folder is opened," warns the IT expert.
To avoid falling into the trap of attackers, Valentyn Herasymenko gives some practical advice to his colleagues:
Ukrainian IT professionals regularly share similar stories of confronting hackers. For example, a Senior Frontend Engineer told how someone tried to slip him malicious code under the guise of a job offer. According to him, in such schemes (known in cybersecurity as Contagious Interview), less than 5 minutes pass from executing the git clone command to completely hacking a working machine.
A Senior Software Developer had a similar experience. During an interview for a position at Cryptan Labs, he almost fell victim to a scam, with the interviewer being an AI avatar.
