Clever new phishing scam targets unemployed New Yorkers By Dan Patterson Unemployment phishing scam explained A new phishing scam is targeting unemployed New Yorkers, stealing their driver's licenses, Social Security numbers and other personal information in order to resell it on the "dark web." Here's how it works: Victims are lured with authentic-looking text and email messages that link to a carbon copy of the New York State unemployment website. After a victim enters their username and password, the fake site asks for high-quality images of sensitive documents. That gives the cybercriminals access to the person's name, address, phone number, date of birth, driver's license number, Social Security number and email address.