When I was in between jobs for the last few months, I found myself uploading my resume on Monster.com. Little did I know that it could potentially fall into the wrong hands: hackers, or in the context of computer networking, “crackers” and “phishers.” Researchers at Symantec Corporation plundered the user names and passwords from recruiters searching for job candidates.

“What phishers are trying to do these days is make them as realistic as possible, by adding specific information,” stated Patrick Martin, a product manager at Symantec Corp. “If they know you’ve submitted a resume to Monster, that makes it (seem) a little more legitimate.”

While this is a tremendous flaw in security, I could only imagine how much of a field day computer networking companies are having with this story. From Monster.com’s shoes, I could imagine them thinking that this is not the first time user data has been exposed^[1].

However, Monster.com has just released a security notice on their website, so all users beware of fraudulent e-mails from recruiters.  Below is a screen shot of Monster.com’s security notice:

[1] Totse.com: Bill Wall’s List of Computer Hacker Incidents

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