Monster.com Hacked, 75M Users at Risk

By Jane McEntegart, published on January 27, 2009 at 4:50 PM
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: , , , , | Themes: The Internet
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Monster Inc., the company behind job search site, Monster.com has been hacked. The details of 75 million users could be at risk. Ouch.

Patrick Manzo, SVP and global chief privacy officer of Monster Worldwide said in a statement dated January 23 that the company’s database had been hacked user data had been obtained, although he did not specify which of the 36 countries the site operates in are affected.

“We recently learned our database was illegally accessed and certain contact and account data were taken, including Monster user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers, and some basic demographic data,” admitted Manzo. “The information accessed does not include resumes. Monster does not generally collect – and the accessed information does not include - sensitive data such as social security numbers or personal financial data,” he assured users.

Mr. Manzo went on to advise users to change their passwords and said they may even be required to do so when logging into the site sometime in the future. Despite this, he said the Monster was encouraging users to “proactively” change their passwords themselves.

The company also warns users that the information obtained could be used against them in phishing scams. Manzo clarified that Monster would never send an unsolicited email asking users to confirm username and password, nor would the site request you download any software, “tool” or “access agreement” in order to use your Monster account.

While it’s all well and good that nothing overly sensitive has been obtained, we’re a little miffed that the company has yet to reveal which countries have been hit. The site has 75 million users worldwide, and if not all countries are affected, it’d be nice to know which of us should be on full alert.

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Comments

LATTEH 01/28/2009 12:02 PM
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LOL at the picture


but this really sucks jobs are hard enough to get now monster gets hacked? O_O

blueeyesm 01/28/2009 12:37 PM
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Why are Danni's HDD slideshows related?

Anonymous 01/28/2009 1:28 AM
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I don't know but I like them...

captaincharisma 01/28/2009 3:17 AM
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i think this has been going on for the last couple of months. i am always getting an e-mail trying to recruit me for a job but everytime i delete it they keep sending the same one

Darkk 01/28/2009 5:45 AM
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This isn't the first time the site got hacked. When it happened the first time they assured us it wouldn't happen again.

Well it did. So to safeguard my info I went ahead and deleted the account. I already changed my info months ago and removed any sensitive data off of it simply because I can't trust Monster.com safeguarding my data anymore.

With a growing problem of identity theft and phishing scams I decided it's best I delete the account. Shame tho.

Anonymous 01/30/2009 1:16 AM
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For god's sake would you hash the passwords before saving them to the database. This is security 101.

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