Released: August 23, 2007

Monster.com users become prey for phishers

Source: Joseph Menn, Los Angeles Times (Free Registration)

Hundreds of thousands of job seekers are at risk of being ripped off through a sophisticated scheme concocted by Internet criminals who have penetrated the resume database at Monster.com, one of the nation’s largest recruitment websites.

Using e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other personal information harvested from the job-hunting site, the crooks are posing as potential employers or as Monster.com itself in a bid to hustle the victims’ bank account numbers and passwords.

The scheme came to light this week after a major computer security firm, Symantec Corp., reported on its website that it had found a hoard of 1.6 million personal records stolen from Monster.com on a computer in Ukraine.

By Wednesday, Monster.com had posted a warning on its online “security center” that scam artists were sending bogus job offers to its users in an effort to get their bank information.

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