Popular Irish Recruitment Website Faces Data Breach

Recently, RecruitIreland, a popular Irish job portal alerted users on possible data breach.

Albuquerque, NM (prHWY.com) February 10, 2011 - Albuquerque, United States -
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.

Contact Press

EC-Council
Website: http://www.eccouncil.org
Email: iclass@eccouncil.org
Tel: 505-341-3228

EC-Council is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce skills. It is the owner and developer of 16 security certifications, including Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI) and EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA)/License Penetration Tester (LPT). Its certificate programs are offered in over 60 countries around the world.

EC-Council has trained over 80,000 individuals and certified more than 30,000 members, through more than 450 training partners globally. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies including the U.S. federal government via the Montgomery GI Bill, Department of Defense via DoD 8570.01-M, National Security Agency (NSA) and the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS). EC-Council also operates EC-Council University and the global series of Hacker Halted security conferences.

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Tag Words: recruitireland, data breach, information security, job portal, fake job offers, security, spam, it security, recruitment, ireland

Categories: Security

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