August 30th, 2007
Monster.com Admits to Earlier Attacks
Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
It’s bad enough when a data breach occurs. It’s worse when a breach that involves over a million users. But then to be told that an investigation shows it wasn’t the first time - but they just now discovered it - wow.
The theft of personal information from some 1.3 million users of the Monster.com job search service first revealed two weeks ago was not a one-time attack, the company’s CEO said today.
“The Company has determined that this incident is not the first time Monster’s database has been the target of criminal activity,” Sal Iannuzzi, the chairman and CEO of Monster Worldwide, said in a statement. In an interview with Reuters, Iannuzzi also acknowledged that the most recent breach may have been substantially larger than the 1.3 million users the company said earlier had been affected.
“It could easily be in the millions,” Iannuzzi told Reuters. He did not spell out when other attacks had taken place, or even how many might have breached the company’s security. Source: ComputerWorld
We Say: When you think about how many users of Monster.com there have been - including me - it’s frightening. Particularly since they don’t seem to be sure about just how much information and how many users have been affected. Fortunately, I have real-time credit monitoring, but that doesn’t give me - or many others - that much comfort.
Steve R says:
My philosophy on giving lots of personal info (credit card number, job history, etc.), is that the company must be big enough to sue if they get careless with my data, and yet not big enough to guarantee they’ll crush me if you do.
I think Monster.com qualifies for both of these. I look forward to the lawsuits. I hope they are not class action.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:04 am