State Announces that the Illinois Job Link Website Has Been Hacked

As if being unemployed and job searching wasn't hard enough, there's one more thing that job seekers in Illinois will need to worry about- having their personal information stolen.

According to WREX, a hacker was able to steal 1.4 million users' information from America's Job Link, including names, dates of birth, and social security numbers.

WREX reached out to America's Job Link for comment, but they have yet to hear anything.

While the breach happened in February, the investigation into the hack could very well be in it's earliest stages; making it hard to give accurate details.

As someone who experienced this myself with the Target data breach and one with Wells Fargo, you may never get an accurate answer as to if you were a victim or not. The best you can do at this point is monitor your bank account and your credit report. I did that for roughly three months after the hack.

Best case scenario, if the FBI is involved, and I imagine they will be, they'll be able to use forensic evidence to figure out how many job-seeker accounts were compromised and who those individuals are. Depending on what they find, you might be notified if your information was stolen.

Until we learn more, please feel free to contact one of the following credit agencies to check your credit. (I use Credit Karma to check mine.)

Equifax, (800) 685-1111
Experian, (888) 397-3742
TransUnion, (800) 916-8800

Catch Mandy James on “The Steve Shannon Show with Mandy James” on 97 ZOK from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.