Job Seekers Alerted for Possible ID Fraud

Job Seekers Alerted for Possible ID Fraud

The Metropolitan Police and the Information Assurance Advisory Council (IAAC) has conducted a study proving how personal data of job seekers can be easily breached by cybercrooks.


A bogus job vacancy advertisement was posted in the internet by CV template service iProfile by which 107 applications were received. All the applications consisted of personal information like passport number or birthdate.



Among those who applied, 61 people were found to have provided enough data on their CV that could be used by cybercriminals to open a fake credit card account.



Rick Bacon, CEO of iProfile, said: “With tens of thousands of people flooding onto the job market every week, the threat of CV identity theft should be at the forefront of peoples’ minds. Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the UK and sending your CV without first checking out where it’s going or masking your personal details is akin to giving an ID fraudster your life history on a plate. We were shocked to find that 68% of people sent their CV into our fake job advert without doing any background checks first.”



Normally, only three out of fifteen significant information are needed to commit identity fraud. The experiment received applications containing eight pieces of key data which is more than adequate to create fraudulent accounts.