Just yesterday, I received an e-mail from the Guardian Jobs website stating that they had been ‘deliberately and professionally hacked.’ I have made a number of job applications via their website and they believe that my personal data in relation to those applications ‘may’ have been accessed. ‘The matter has been reported to the police, who are now undertaking a full investigation through the police central e-crime unit at New Scotland Yard’ whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt!!!!!!!!!! amongst some other well known profanities was my first reaction.
I was and still am in complete shock. If a well-established and trusted website like The Guardian can be hacked, what chance do other websites have? Everyday we reveal a little bit of information about ourselves on the world wide web through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Bebo. We find ourselves giving our credit card details and personal information when shopping online, or doing various other tiny things like online forms, without even realising how much we are revealing about ourselves and how much we are actually putting ourselves at risk.
The Guardian has provided a handful of links that they think may be useful to us if we believe that we have been a victim of identity fraud. What annoys me the most is that they haven’t given a helpline number or made any suggestions as to whether users should unsubscribe from their website. I feel helpless…were my job applications, of which there were many, been intercepted by this professional hacker? Who else has my personal details?
And finally, can we really call ourselves victims when we willingly expose ourselves inside and out?
