"Recently, malicious software, known as Infostealer.Monstres, was used to gain unauthorized access to the Monster.com resume database to steal the contact information of job seekers. Monster Worldwide is the technology provider for the USAJOBS website and regrettably, some of the con-tact information captured came from USAJOBS job seekers. The information captured included name, address, telephone number, and email address. Monster Worldwide has assured the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that Social Security Numbers were NOT compromised because of IT security shields USAJOBS has in place.

As the two PR specialists noted in last year's comparison, styles immediately diverge. Monster chooses to soften the coming blow with its first sentence. US AJOBS simply begins stating facts.

Now for the opening to Monster's latest letter, released last week:

"As is the case with many companies that maintain large databases of information, Monster is the target of illegal attempts to access and extract information from its database. We recently learned our database was illegally accessed and certain contact and account data were taken, including Monster user IDs and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers, and some basic demographic data. The information accessed does not include resumes. Monster does not generally collect -- and the accessed information does not include - sensitive data such as social security numbers or personal financial data. Immediately upon learning about this, Monster initiated an investigation and took corrective steps. It is important to know the company continually monitors for any illicit use of information in our database, and so far, we have not detected the misuse of this information."

Unlike the first letter, Monster dispenses with the soft approach and gets to the point. But there's still plenty of qualifying language. First, the company goes out of its way from the opening words to point out that it's not the only company to go through this kind of breach. Many mammoth companies with deep databases are in the crosshairs, it notes. Monster is also sure to cast itself as the victim, saying it is a "target" and that it has been "illegally accessed."

Nebel says the latest letter is so-so: not great, but not terrible either.

"There are no details about how they were hacked, nor steps taken to prevent it again," Nebel says. "While I don't expect them to necessarily tell us gory details there should at least be some context, be it human error, a zero-day attack, vendor issue, etc."

Nebel notes that this isn't really a disclosure letter per se as defined by Statute or Regulations, but more a friendly customer relations letter because Monster is likely not compelled to issue this by any law or rule based on the nature of this particular incident.