In the information era of 21st century, we cannot live without Internet. Today, Internet is an immense source of information. But nowadays, hackers have become a big threat for this boon. We often hear about misuse of stored data of different sites. The concern for misuse of stored data becomes more profound when the stored data pertains to financial transactions of individuals. As a result, users or operators feel threatened about the inadequacy of privacy being maintained by different websites.Recently, hackers have broken into the database of Monster Worldwide Inc, the worldwide website for career seekers. As per sources of Monster website, record of this site was illegitimately accessed and contact and account data were taken, including Monster user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers and some fundamental demographic data. Interestingly, the hackers did not access resumes, social security numbers or financial data.
As per company spokeswoman Nikki Richardson, hackers broke into Monster sites around the world apart from Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe. She also said that Monster was functioning with "appropriate law enforcement agencies."
In the UK alone, about 4.5 million job seekers have signed up on monster.co.uk. This would be the biggest data stealing in the UK since last year’s data loss of 25 million child benefit claimants.
In this regard, an investigation is in progress in the United States where the company is based. Monster operates in 36 countries with millions of users, including 4.5 million in Britain.
However, Monster has taken its own ’counteractive steps’ and advised customers to amend their code word as the hackers could make use of email addresses to ’phish’ for auxiliary information.
Monster too warned users to be on the look-out for phishing e-mails built around the details surrendered to Monster.
According to sources, Monster will never send a spontaneous e-mail asking users to confirm their username and password nor will Monster ask users to download any software device or admittance concord in order to use your Monster account. Hence, data privacy assumes great significance. Following principles are broadly common in privacy law:
1.The individual should be able to discover the existence and ownership of automated personal data systems and infer whether information about them exists in a system.
2.The data about individuals, which is held for processing must have been obtained fairly for specific lawful purpose only.
3.The data must be accurate, up-to-date and kept no longer than necessary.
4.Special measures over and above the normal computer security procedures should be taken to preserve the privacy of personal data.
5.Data must be used only for the specific purpose and may be disclosed in accordance with the specific purpose only.
Moreover, incidents of hacking of Monster site reveals that user of websites are not free from insecurity of their privacy and confidentiality of data. Therefore, we should not provide any kind of data to websites, which may be detrimental for us.
Ultimately, hacking is part of cyber crime. We should develop corrective measures in this regard. Strict laws and regulations, along with their implementation may be helpful in this regard.