News
        
        Monster.com Gets Hacked Again, Data Stolen
        
        
        
			- By Jabulani Leffall
- January 27, 2009
        For the second time in as many weeks, after a breach at  Heartland Payment Systems, a company storing a large volume of personal data has  been hit by a major theft. This time the hack target was leading employment Web  site Monster.com, which hosts millions of resumes.  
The company reported on Friday that hackers apparently accessed its customer database. They illegally accessed  and stole an unspecified number of Monster.com user IDs and passwords, names,  phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
The hackers may have used a modus operandi similar to the one used against Heartland  last week, observers say. The Monster.com  hackers didn't get credit card information, but the stolen information could be  used to abet a credit card scam. 
For instance, in 2007, antivirus software giant Symantec  Corp. described an automated and malicious Trojan-horse program that it dubbed Infostealer.Monstres.  The bug was used to hack into Monster.com employer accounts and cross-reference  that data to some 1.6 million Monster.com users. 
Security experts now contend that with Monster.com getting  hit twice inside two years and Heartland being gaffled (or ripped off) last  week, the biggest infraction here may not be theft but apathy among certain  enterprises.
"It's not the lack of capability, it's the lack of  will," said Phil Lieberman, president of security application and service  firm Lieberman Software. "Monster is a typical example of a gen-y company  striving for comfort instead of a business advantage through security."
Lieberman noted that this incident was the first time that Monster.com  had publicly announced such a theft. A previous data theft at Monster.com was  disclosed by the British media. He recommended that Monster.com implement compartmentalization  of its critical and not-so-critical information assets.
"This is gross incompetence, and what I would ask is  who were the auditors and security consultants working with Monster? That's a  problem too," he added. "There's no money in the cure but there's  plenty of money in the treatment, and even though it generates revenue and  billable hours, it doesn't solve the problem. This is clearly what happened  here." 
For its part, Monster.com has sent notices to their users indicating  that their databases were illegally accessed. However, the company didn't  reveal how and why the breach may have occurred or how many records were  stolen. Going forward, the challenges for enterprises are going to be not only  protecting information but also massaging the PR while not spooking customers  or shareholders. 
Experts say Heartland and Monster.com are just the beginning  of a trend.
"We are seeing an increase in targeted attacks and will  continue to see an upward tick in 2009 as more hackers eye information; data is  king," said Don Leatham, senior director of solutions & strategy at  Lumension. "We'll see attacks being handled inside the network and we'll  see less attacks coming through the gateway."
Leatham and others predict that there will be an increase in  attacks using uncontrolled, removable portable devices and media, something  that could become the Achilles' heel of some enterprises when it comes to  preventing data theft and loss.    
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
            
        
        
                
                    About the Author
                    
                
                    
                    Jabulani Leffall is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Financial Times of London, Investor's Business Daily, The Economist and CFO Magazine, among others.