Popular Irish Recruitment Website Suffers Data Breach

By Author: iClass
Total Articles: 211
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Recently, recruitireland.com, a popular Irish recruitment website suffered a security breach. Attackers allegedly gained access to a customer database. The company has notified the customers regarding the alleged data breach. The notification reveals that first name, last name and e-mail addresses of customers have been compromised. The data breach may affect around 40,000 registered users of the site. Information security professionals are currently investigating the data breach incident and the website has been temporarily suspended for users. The company has reported the breach to Gardai, the national police service of Ireland and the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland. The preliminary investigations have not revealed breach of databases containing resumes, usernames and passwords.

Usually, ethical hacking is used to identify the security weaknesses. In this case, the breach was noticed after several users received spam e-mails. The company has cautioned users against responding to any spam ...
... e-mails containing fake job offers. The fake e-mails may also contain the first name and last name of users to make them believe that it is appearing from a legitimate source. The fake e-mails pose threat to information security as unwary registered users of the site may respond to such e-mails and disclose further personal educational and professional details.

Attackers target websites and web applications to extract sensitive customer and business information stored in the associated databases. The revealed information may be used to create fake identities, send spam e-mails, initiate targeted attacks and deceive individuals.

Some fake job e-mails may also have a fee requirement to solicit financial information related to targeted victims. As such, users must refrain from providing credit card and debit card numbers in response to any job offer. They must also avoid opening suspicious e-mail attachments and refrain from clicking on suspicious links.

Organizations are constantly faced with the threat of security and data breach from cybercriminals. Data breach may have both financial and legal implications for individuals and businesses. Therefore, organizations must place high emphasis on IT security and allocate appropriate budgets to combat Internet based threats. Regular security assessment of websites and applications is crucial to mitigate weaknesses and eliminate potential threat vectors.