Monster.com alerts users to third data breach in less than 2 years
As if job searching in this economy isn’t discouraging enough, those seeking jobs through Monster.com have been notified that yet another data breach has put users at risk of identity theft.
Monster.com posted a warning to their users on their website Friday. Hackers were able to access user IDs, passwords, names, e-mail addresses, birth dates, gender and ethnicity were exposed. In some cases the users’ state of residence was also exposed. Monster.com doesn’t collect Social Security numbers or resumes, so neither of those could have been exposed.
Monster.com also hostsUSAJobs.com, the federal government’s website for job openings, and users of that site were also affected.
In the security warning, Monster.com recommended users voluntarily change their passwords now, and alerted them that they would soon be required to change their passwords and login information.
Monster.com also told their users that they would not contact them via e-mail, and advised them to delete any e-mails from senders posing as Monster.com because they are most likely phishing attempts to obtain personal information.
This is the third monstrous data breach for the job search giant. Hackers attacked with a Trojan horse to steal the personal information of 1.6 million users and send it on to remote server. Later that same year, hackers attacked Monster.com again with malicious code that infected visitors’ computers with a virus.
Monster.com said in their warning that they have not yet found any evidence of identity theft resulting from the data breach.