Guardian Jobs Security Update
Security update - 27 October 2009
We continue to work closely with the Police on their investigation and to undertake our own investigation into this security breach. The Police have advised us that they will be in a position to share more information about the crime with us towards the end of the week. We have also reported the incident to the Information Commissioner’s office. Please continue to visit this site for more information updates. In the meantime we have produced a number of FAQs on the following page:
http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/securityupdate-faq.html
Security update - 25 October 2009
We have been assured by our provider that the system is now secure and, in line with the Information Commissioner’s guidance on data protection, we have identified and contacted, or attempted to contact, everyone who may be at risk.
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.
We are continuing to work closely with our service provider and the police, who are undertaking a full investigation through the central e-crime unit at New Scotland Yard. Please continue to visit this site for regular updates.
The Guardian is a member of the Safer Jobs recruitment grouping (www.safer-jobs.com) , and you may find their website helpful, in addition to the official web sites listed below:
www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/
www.stop-idfraud.co.uk
www.banksafeonline.org.uk
www.getsafeonline.org
Security update - 24 October 2009
We can confirm that we are investigating a breach of security to the guardian jobs site that we were alerted to yesterday. We have been assured by our provider that the system is now secure and we have identified and contacted everyone who may have been affected.
We would like to assure you that we are absolutely committed to protecting the privacy of our users and we are treating this situation with the utmost seriousness. The matter has been reported to the police who are now undertaking a full investigation through the central e-crime unit at New Scotland Yard.
We will update you on this page should further information become available.
Guardian News and Media Limited