If You Used BigMoneyJobs, Your Password May Be Sitting in Plaintext

HEROIC analysts logged the BigMoneyJobs breach, a job listing platform, dated April 3, 2014. According to reporting on the incident, an attacker known as "ProbablyOnion" exploited a SQL injection vulnerability to compromise more than 36,000 user accounts. HEROIC's database holds 36,779 of those records, containing email addresses and passwords stored in plaintext.

Why the BigMoneyJobs Breach Is Dangerous

Plaintext passwords require no cracking at all. If your password is in this data set, it is sitting right there, readable, next to your email address, ready for anyone who obtains the data to use immediately.

What Was Exposed in the BigMoneyJobs Breach

• Email addresses
• Plaintext passwords

Why the BigMoneyJobs Breach Matters

Job seekers often reuse passwords across email, LinkedIn, and other career-related accounts. An exposed plaintext password gives attackers a working credential for credential stuffing, which can lead to account takeover and, from there, phishing attempts that use knowledge of your job search to appear more convincing.

How SQL Injection Made the BigMoneyJobs Breach Possible

This breach reportedly happened through SQL injection, a technique where an attacker inserts malicious code into a website's input field, such as a search box or login form, to trick the site's database into returning data it was never meant to expose. It remains one of the oldest and most common ways attackers pull entire user tables, including passwords, out of a web application in a single move.

Check If You Were Affected by the BigMoneyJobs Breach

If you ever created a BigMoneyJobs account, check whether your email address appears in this exposure. HEROIC's free breach scanner searches more than 400 billion leaked records, including this one, so you can see your exposure and change any reused passwords.