Glitch in grocer's website fixed

The careers website for Nova Scotia's Pete's Frootique is secure again.

Personal information of online job applicants was mistakenly exposed on Pete's Frootique's website on Sunday, but the company reports the cause has been identified and the glitch has been fixed.

A woman who clicked on a link for a grocery clerk job on Pete's site was transferred to an administrative page and saw the resumes of other applicants that dated back two years. (The information contained on the site didn't include confidential information such as social insurance numbers or banking information.)

Upon learning of the problem, store management immediately began an investigation. The issue was found to stem from third-party software provider ExactHire, which links to the grocer's website and retains its recruitment data, said Pete's COO Dianne Hamilton in a company release.

Jeff Hallam, partner of ExactHire, said the information that was unintentionally viewable on Pete's site was due to "an extremely unique convergence of events that allowed one applicant to inadvertently gain administrative access to the database.” He added that there were no instances of outside hacking or other malicious attempts to access data within the site, and that the unauthorized access was isolated to the sole person who reported it.

He stressed that ExactHire takes full responsibility for the error.

Hamilton added, “Pete’s takes very seriously our responsibility to ensure the security of all private information shared with us through the course of business. We are satisfied that every possible step has been taken by ExactHire in this investigation to isolate and fix the problem and we are confident in their ability to maintain the security of this information in the future.”

The career site, which was offline during the investigation, is now back online.