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Zero Day

Ryan Naraine, Emil Protalinski and Dancho Danchev

UK newspaper Web site hacked; 500,000 job-seekers affected

By | October 26, 2009, 9:32am PDT

Summary: In what is being described as a “deliberate and sophisticated crime,” the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. says the careers section of its Web site was hacked.

In what is being described as a “deliberate and sophisticated crime,” the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. says the careers section of its Web site was hacked, exposing sensitive data belonging to about half a million users.

According to a note posted online by the Guardian:

The police remain anxious to keep information about the apparent theft to a minimum, in order not to compromise their investigations, but did agree with us that we could inform those users who may be affected. We stress our regret that this breach has occurred. This is apparently a deliberate and sophisticated crime, of which the Guardian is a victim in addition to some of our users.

It is clear that only a minority of Guardian Jobs users are at risk. Some of the data which appears to have been stolen is up to two years old. We have emailed the approximately half a million users whose data may have been compromised. This is out of the total of 10,328,290 unique users the site has per calendar year.

The USA jobs site (www.guardianjobs.com) has not been affected.

There are no details available on the type of data that was compromised but it’s likely the information includes CVs and resumes from job seekers who registered on the Guardian’s Jobs section.

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Topics

Ryan Naraine is a journalist and social media enthusiast specializing in Internet and computer security issues.

Disclosure

Ryan Naraine

The most important disclosure is of my employment with Kaspersky Lab as a member of the global research and analysis team. Kaspersky Lab is a global company specializing in anti-malware and secure content management technologies. I do not own stocks or other investments in any technology company.

Biography

Ryan Naraine

Ryan Naraine is a journalist and social media enthusiast specializing in Internet and computer security issues. He is currently security evangelist at Kaspersky Lab, an anti-malware company with operations around the globe. He is taking a leadership role in developing the company's online community initiative around secure content management technologies.

Prior to joining Kaspersky Lab, Ryan was Editor-at-Large/Security at eWEEK, leading the magazine's and Web site's coverage of Internet and computer security issues and managing the popular SecurityWatch blog, covering the daily threats, vulnerabilities and IT security technologies. He also covered IT security, hacker attacks and secure content management topics for Jupiter Media's internetnetnews.com.

Ryan can be reached at naraine SHIFT 2 gmail.com. For daily updates on Ryan's activities, follow him on Twitter.

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RE: UK newspaper Web site hacked; 500,000 job-seekers affected
efsane Updated - 8th Apr 2011
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
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0 Votes
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Carefull here!
kd5auq 26th Oct 2009
The headline reads funny - " the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. says the careers section of its Web site was hacked. by Ryan Naraine "

Especially if you miss the period after "hacked"! LOL
wink
0 Votes
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And this as well...
BubbaJones_ Updated - 26th Oct 2009
"...The police remain anxious to keep information about the
apparent theft to a minimum,...". Shouldn't that read "the
police are eager.."? Sorry, did I miss the memo stating
anxious and eager have interchangeable meanings?

I've seen in many high falutin newspapers, magazines, TV
reporters, blogs, and the like, where anxious and anxiously
are used while eager or eagerly was the correct word to use.
0 Votes
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What technology was hacked?
mlindl 28th Oct 2009
NT
Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
sesli sohbet sesli chat

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