Monster didn’t become a job board colossus by disrespecting anyone’s privacy. In fact, safeguarding identities is a critical component of its commercial success, not to mention its little understood info-tech prowess.
But the purple beast has a target on its back. Some job seekers who have entrusted Monster with personal histories and contact data have been victimized by phishing and e-mail scams.
I received an email from Monster Friday that contained the following warning:
“We have recently become aware of a fraudulent (”phishing”) email, claiming to be from Monster, which was sent to a large group of Internet users, including some of our customers.
The fraudulent email, which may be personally addressed, directs the recipient to a fraudulent website to download a Monster “Hiring Tool”, “certificated utility”, “Job Seeker Tool” or other program that the email claims is needed to continue to use Monster services.
Please be aware of the following information should you receive this email:
  - The fraudulent email is NOT from Monster. It contains “spoofed” domain information designed to mimic a Monster address.
  - This email was sent [to] millions of consumers, not just Monster customers, hoping that those people who are Monster customers will react to it.”
I appreciate the warning, especially given the increasing sophistication of phisher’s attacks. And, as you might imagine, this has happened before: http://www.sparkplug9.com/bizhack/2006/07/20/monster-phishing-scam/
In February another scam hit both Monster and CareerBuilder customers. A recent Washington Post article said job seekers were victims of a “USA Voice” fake-job scam. An organization called Internet Defence tracked 92 CareerBuilder incidents on Dec 14th, 2006. Yet, the facts also indicate that banking customers are far more likely to be targeted than job board users, according to PhishTank’s list of popular targets.Â
Have you been the victim of a phishing attack? Do warnings such as these make you think twice about posting sensitive personal data on the Internet?
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What concerns me is that many bloggers post their Flickr photos of their kids, names of spouse, etc. Now a semi sophisticated crook could put a profile together pretty quick and really attack the privacy of an Individual. Don’t you think?
Bloggers, like job seekers, bank & e-commerce customers, are prone to scams, too. I think the scammers are more often going after information they can sell, especially credit cards.