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Monster UK website hacked and personal data stolen!

A month or so ago I wrote about the theft of personal data from various job sites. You can read the blog post here.

Today morning I came to understand that the Monster UK's website has been hacked and personal data of more than 4.5 million potential job seekers have been stolen by the online thieves. Names, passwords, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, birth dates, sex and ethnicity data as well as other “demographic information”, were all stolen, the company admitted yesterday. Monster.com refused to comment on how much information had been taken but the personal details of millions of people can be downloaded in under an hour once a hacker has gained access.

Security analysts told that the plundered data from the recruitment site would be used by organised gangs to open fake bank accounts or take out loans in the names of unsuspecting customers. Monster.co.uk has posted a message on the site advising all customers to change their passwords immediately.
“It’s a horrendous breach,” said Graham Cluley, of Sophos, an IT security firm. “The information they have can be used to cause all kinds of mischief.”
About four out of ten people use the same password to access multiple websites, Mr Cluley said, meaning that criminals could use the Monster.co.uk data to obtain far more sensitive information. “These hackers could now use the passwords to access e-mail and online bank accounts.”

In case you have registered with www.monster.co.uk , please go and change your password immediately.

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