Monday, January 28, 2008

Hackers attack world's largest jobs site

Hundreds of thousands of people have been exposed to the risk of blackmail after the website of the world's largest online recruiter was hacked.

Personal details stored on Monster.com, a website that lists job vacancies, were taken after a raid by hackers who posed as employers to gain access to the site. Having stolen the information, hackers e-mailed the victims claiming to have infected their computers with a virus and threatening to delete files unless demands for payment were met.

In all, more than 1.6 million entries in Monster's system – belonging to "several hundred thousand" members – were taken after the hackers logged in using the details of employers who routinely scour the site for prospective workers, according to Symantec, the security firm.

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