Employment In The US: Hacks On Job-Assisting Company Puts Nearly 5 Million Americans At Risk Of Identity Theft

A series of hacks targeting America’s Job Link Alliance, a Kansas-based company that operates job search engines across several states connecting applicants with potential employers, compromised the personal information listed on 4.8 million different job-seeker accounts, the Departments of Labor of multiple states reported Wednesday.

The personal information exposed by the hacks on March 12 and March 13 included customers’ names, Social Security numbers, and birthdays. The states that have reported being affected were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont.

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Kansas reportedly pays America’s Job Link Alliance $440,000 every year for their services, Nicole Randall, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Commerce told the Topeka Capital-Journal Wednesday. Randall also said that nearly 1 million Kansans have accounts.

America's Job Link accounts created on or after March 14 were reportedly not compromised. But those who signed up for an account in the past four years were asked by the Department of Labor to put a fraud alert on their credit reports and to notify local police if they noticed any suspicious activity.

America's Job Link Alliance has asked the FBI to launch a criminal investigation into the matter, though it hasn't been confirmed whether the bureau will take the case, Arkansas Department of Workforce Services spokesman Steve Guntharp told Arkansas Online Tuesday. An independent forensic firm hired by America’s Job Link said that the code vulnerable to the hackings has been eradicated, according to a news release issued by the Idaho Department of Labor Wednesday.

Roughly 170,000 of Idaho's 530,000 job-seeker accounts with America’s Job Link, were compromised. The security breach reportedly put more than 200,000 people in Delaware at risk of identity theft. In Arkansas, which pays America’s Job Link roughly $400,000 annually for its services, the data of 19,000 job seekers was affected.

It remains unclear whether the security breach was malicious or if the malware was unintentionally introduced by a job seeker using a computer containing a virus, Vermont Department of Labor officials, told local reporters Wednesday.