So this just happened. Is this a scam? And if it is, then how exactly does this work?
His profe and friends seem super legit.
Earlier this year, I had a similar guy contact me. He needed help with his NFT marketplace - he wanted to add 3D model support there. So we discussed some features for 2 days, then he sent me a GitLab repo and asked me to implement a test feature (to show that I’m capable of). He didn’t even ask to commit - just record a video of it working. I checked the repo for any kind of malware very carefully, and it was clean.
So anyway, I did what he asked for, sent him the video. And that’s it. He went silent. And after a week, I noticed that the chat disappeared with all message history.
Do any of you guys have a clue what’s happening? Btw I still have that repo saved locally, should I post it?
They send you a “test” repo that tries to steal your private keys from the local environment. It’s usually in the frontend part of the minified “build.” Antivirus doesn’t pick it up because you’ve allowed permissions.
Sending you a video means proof that you’ve run the repo and if there were no private keys extracted they just ghost you and move to the next.
They phish/take over legit, established accounts, so you don’t suspect anything, other than the experience of the person contacting you a bit off - they don’t look like they would run crypto projects.
Tate said: @Weston
This.
But damn, this is so fucking scary.
They could even download my .txt file with all the passwords.
So you ran his code??
Yep. It was a React app…
But my only hope is that I was in China back then, and the Great China Firewall could block those requests that were supposed to send my keys to his server.
@Weston
Ahhh that’s what it was! Had a person contact me on LinkedIn and make an offer. Arranged a video call with them, they asked me to take a look at their repo beforehand. They didn’t show up to the call and ceased to respond. The next morning, their LinkedIn account was deleted, along with all the correspondence between us.
Too bad for them that I don’t work for free and won’t clone or touch any of your code until we have a contract. Also, only run the code inside of isolated Docker containers.
@Weston
>the experience of the person contacting you a bit off - they don’t look like they would run crypto projects.
In my case, it was the opposite: The guy kept telling he doesn’t know how to code and is not familiar with all that tech stuff… But I got the vibe that he could easily build that project by himself.
