Job site live again after data breach

RECRUITMENT website RecruitIreland.com was live again last night following an audit by web security experts as measures were taken to secure the site following a breach of its security on Tuesday.

Gardaí are investigating the attack on the website in which some 400,000 names and email addresses were accessed by spammers.

The website was taken offline immediately after it was discovered at about 1.50pm on Tuesday.

Access to the site and the database was immediately shut down to deny the hackers continued access.

In a statement last night, Brian Honan of web security firm BH Consulting said: “We worked closely with RecruitIreland.com to identify how the website was compromised and that particular issue has now been addressed.

“Additional measures have also been implemented to enhance the security of the website and we will continue to work with RecruitIreland.com to assure the security of the system.

“Extensive testing of the website for any security weaknesses has also been conducted and the security of the website is in line with industry recognised standards.”

RecruitIreland.com managing director Tom Crosbie said: “We take this incident and any attempted breach of our database extremely seriously and this has been investigated internally by our own people and externally by security experts.

“The Data Protection Commissioner was also made aware of this breach immediately as were the gardaí and have been updated with reports throughout this process.

“From our investigations to date, no other data including CVs, usernames or passwords has been compromised.

“We have discovered how the breach occurred and are working to ensure this does not happen again.”

The company has advised all users on its database via email of the potential for spam as a result of the breach.

RecruitIreland.com is a subsidiary of Thomas Crosbie Holdings which also includes the Irish Examiner.