Job portals are gold mines for hackers

HACKERS ARE TURNING employment websites into all you can eat buffets for jobseekers' personal data.

While the economic downturn has seen an upsurge in the numbers of people putting their data online at job portals, apparently it has made such sites good places for hackers to attack.

The India Times reports that hackers are not only attacking corporate hiring portals but also setting up fake ones for collecting applicants' personal information.

Quoting internet insecurity firm Trend Micro, the newspaper said that online job listing aggregators and individual corporate sites are proving to be gold mines for collecting personal data.

Trend Micro marketing manager (APEC) Abhinav Karnwal said that during a downturn applicants may feel constrained to give potential employers whatever information they request, including even their social security or bank account numbers.

The most common tricks are fake job sites and other clever traps to dupe the jobless. Fake "work from home" offers are also successful at getting people to hand over their private data.

If a hacker can get their paws on a CV, they can score mobile numbers, addresses, email IDs and other personal details that are as good as cash in the black market. µ