TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

My HR dept leaked some data to a scammer, take any action or ignore?

1 pointsby pthrover 2 years ago
I&#x27;m in some big multinational. I didn&#x27;t get my salary of last month; thought I&#x27;d give it a couple of days. Then HR contacts me, asking whether I really did not get my salary? What turns out:<p><pre><code> - someone with some personal email address (which didn&#x27;t contain any part of my name) contacted HR with my name, asking to change my bank account details - HR did (!), without at least asking to re-send from the professional mail account, preferably even signed and encrypted (as is nicely integrated in our email solution). - At pay day, HR transferred the salary to this new bank account - This scammer contacted them again, saying the salary was not received; could they please transfer it again? - HR sent them some proof of payment, revealing some data related to me (legal entity of my employer with address, exact salary of that particular month) - After that, HR thought to probably ask me, at which point the fraud became clear. </code></pre> HR tells me they&#x27;ll transfer the salary &#x27;soon&#x27;, so I&#x27;ll be kind to them and give them a couple of days.<p>What makes me feel bad particularly, is the data related to myself that leaked to this scammer in the process.<p>What would you do? Simply express how uncomfortable I am with that and forget?<p>I don&#x27;t want to &#x27;punish&#x27; the HR person that eventually made the mistake. But I also am upset that they leaked this data.

4 comments

aurizonover 2 years ago
This should be told to management. That same HR person might be in cahoots with the scammer?? It also exposes a flaw that if exploited at a high level could scam all the cash in their accounts = all lose jobs. This exploit exposed a foolish employee as well as an untrained one. In a case like this, escalation should have been done by the HR person.
red_Seashell_32over 2 years ago
Report it. CC your manager, theirs manager, persons from HR manager, head of HR and someone from finance. Your company also should have DPO and fraud departament - they should also be CCed.<p>It’s not about snitching, it’s about ensuring that processes are reviewed, historical data is reviewed, and ensured nothing similar has happened or is about to happen.
pthrover 2 years ago
OK thanks for sharing your thoughts! Much appreciated. For now I reported to my direct manager and the HR manager, asking what HR&#x27;s follow up actions are going to be (suggesting process review &#x2F; staff refresher on processes, and reporting to fraud department). I expect they may want to keep this small, but let&#x27;s see.
pettycashstash2over 2 years ago
A big multinational should have a fraud dept. immediately inform them of this incident as well as your direct manager.