Jobseekers safeguard yourselves against scammers and phishing!
It’s no new news that 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 recruitment portals but are also setting up fake ones for collecting jobseekers 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. Unfortunately hacking and criminal minds on the internet are an ever evolving species. No automatic solutions, firewalls and preventative measures taken by these recruitment portals are ever going to be enough to safeguard online users personal information 100%.
The onus is on each individual browser and jobseeker to educate themselves on how to recognise these scammers and criminals. Please see the below published employersjobs.com articles on how to best safeguard yourself against phishing and scamming on online recruitment portals.
Jobseeker safeguards against fraudulant job adverts!
What is Phishing and how does one avoid it?
