Hackers break into Naukri.com, steal over 1 L resumes

Nigerian hackers have broken into the Naukri.com server and have stolen nearly one lakh resumes.

The incident came to light after an IT firm 'Klaus' which manages Naukri.com's server registered a complaint with the CID Cyber Crime division. Officials from the CID Cyber Crime cell had written a letter to the company's headoffice in Mumbai seeking an explanation about the hack.

Kalus IT Solutions representatives stated in their complaint that Naukri.com had outsourced the work of maintaining their server with the city-based IT firm over a period of time. Klaus charges Naukri.com anywhere between Rs 3 and Rs 5 to maintain each resume of millions of job seekers who register on Naukri.

The complainant also stated this is the first time the server has been hacked. Soon after they came to know about the hack, the firm took measures to protect the remaining existent database of the server. But by then, a lakh resumes were already stolen, they said in the complaint.

Preliminary investigations by Cybercrime cell revealed the IP address of the laptop used for hacking originated from Nigeria.

On the Naukri.com website, there is an option called 'New to Naukri' for first-time job seekers. On this option, one can upload an attachment sized 2 MB which goes to the server managed and maintained by Klaus IT Solution in the City. Klaus then retrieves the resumes from the server and matches them with requirement from companies to intimate them about job offers.

Cybercrime sources said, initially, the hackers hacked the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) of the Naukri website and later they breached their server. The police suspect that within three days, the hackers downloaded at least three lakh resumes.

Looting job-seekers

Using the information on the stolen resumes, hackers are now contacting job aspirants faking that they are from reputed multinational companies.

They are luring job seekers into paying money for back-door entries. There have been several reports of job aspirants who were cheated in a similar manner and complaints have been lodged.

The hackers have used the names of companies such as Wipro, Bosch, Airtel, Accenture, and many others. If one responds to their mail, they are next asked to pay up for registration, interviews. Nearly 10,000 job aspirants have been contacted and attempted to be cheated.

Senior police officials from the Cybercrime cell said job aspirants need to be careful while responding to such e-mails and verify the authenticity of the emails before they go ahead with the job offer.

A few of the job aspirants have also started receiving calls stating that they were from banks and they could process loans if they are interested.

Out of 808 complaints registered before the Cybercrime cell until March 23, 250 complaints were related to fake job offers and bank loans.

Since Kalus IT Solutions is a vendor company involved, we have written to the chief of Naukri.com to come and register a formal police complaint, said a Cybercrime official.