There's a story circulating about how a security research firm found a hacker hiding place with a stash of stolen information on at least 46,000 unlucky victims. And further research suggested the victims probably lost that information to job search sites, possibly even Monster.com, infected with an information stealing Trojan.

The data stash included everything you don't want to lose - passwords, usernames, bank account information, even Social Security numbers.

It's a real wake-up call because it defeats much of the advice we've been giving about security for years. For example, the advice to only trust web sites you're familiar with would have been little value if it's true that some of these victims were exploited while on the Monster.com web site.

And up-to-date virus prevention may not have helped either because, according to researchers, the hackers were sending out new versions of the Trojan code every few days in order to bypass anti-virus software. 

Goes back to my best advice - trust nothing without verifying, keep an eye on your data and your credit report, and keep your fingers crossed.