Monster.com is alerting job hunters of a hack-in that involved the theft of personal information, the Web site announced Friday — raising concerns for widespread identity fraud.
“As soon as we learned about it, we took corrective action,” the company’s spokesperson Nikki Richardson said. “(This is) an investigation that involves law enforcement.”
Among the information stolen was Monster.com user IDs, passwords, e-mail addresses, names, phone numbers and basic demographic data including birth dates, gender, ethnicity and, in some cases, states of residence, Richardson said.
User résumés, Social Security numbers and financial data were not obtained, she said.
MSU Career Services formally operated its career Web site through Monster.com but doesn’t anymore — so MSU students using MySpartanCareer.com don’t have to worry. But MSU Academic Technology Services said students who have a personal Monster.com account should be aware of possible identity theft.
“It helps not having a Social Security number,” said Katherine Ball, communications manager for MSU Academic Technology Services. “But (it’s) personal information. Even without a Social Security number, you can still apply for credit cards or get additional information.”
Personal information encompasses a person’s name, address, phone number and date of birth. And with a group of information, Ball said, a person can still commit identity theft — credit card applications don’t necessarily require Social Security numbers.
“People should definitely be concerned,” Ball said. “It’s just like if you lost your license. How would you feel?”
To protect their identities, Monster.com users are encouraged to change their passwords and will soon be required to do so, Richardson said. Users also are advised to visit Monster’s security page and be aware of e-mail fraud, such as e-mails asking users to confirm an e-mail address, password or other information.
“We take it seriously, but we’ve been monitoring and so far haven’t detected any misuse of information,” Richardson said. “People know we’re making a serious investment in increasing security. (We consider ourselves) as or more robust than other companies.”
MSU’s Career Services Network — which operates MySpartanCareer.com — discontinued usage of Monster.com about two years ago, career advising supervisor Tammison Smith said.
“The system was experiencing growing pains — growing faster than their infrastructure could handle,” she said. “We just wanted something that could work smoothly for students. The (hack-in) would have been a scary thing to wake up to.”
A similar incident impacted job seekers on Monster.com in 2007, when as many as 1.6 million pieces of data were stolen from about 100,000 people, according to Forbes.com.
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