It was announced yesterday that the Guardian Jobs UK website has been deliberately targetted and hacked.  This site, one of the most popular job hunting sites in the UK with over two million regular users,  has emailed some of its users to inform them that their personal data may have been accessed. The company that runs the UK site for the Guardian have reported the security breach to the Metropolitan Police and set up measures to ensure that this cannot happen again.

The data held on this site that the hackers would have been able to access is name, address, date of birth information and previous job history via uploaded CVs or job applications through the site. While no financial details are kept on this website, this information alone is possibly enough for a would-be fraudster to apply for a loan or credit card in the victim’s name.

While the Guardian maintains that affected users have been contacted, it may also be worth all users of the site changing their password for this site. If you have the same password for all your job hunting sites then Personal Marketing recommends that you change those too.

If you have received a warning email from the Guardian to say your account has been targetted, it is advised you contact your bank, credit reference agencies (such as Experian and Equifax), and also the UK’s fraud prevention agency CIFAS (www.cifas.org.uk) to register that there may be potential fraudulent activity on your accounts.