Until this week the biggest anxiety when dealing with eBay has likely been fretting over a negative rating, concerns about slow shipping or a delayed refund. Then suddenly yesterday the media jumped all over the story that eBay had been hacked and users need to change their passwords. By the way, I can tell you from experience the password change process is not as easy or straightforward as you would expect.
EBay is now in damage control mode and trying to calm fears after revealing that hackers attacked its network three months ago. It is believed over 145 million user records were accessed, forcing eBay to issue a security warning. Three states are conducting a joint investigation which will focus on eBay’s measures for securing personal data, the circumstances that led to the breach, how many users were affected, and the company’s response to the breach, said a spokeswoman for Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen.[i] The breach could possibly be the second-biggest in US history, based on the number of records accessed by the hackers. Massive data breaches seem to be occurring much more frequently with Heartland Payments, Target, Neiman Marcus, Living Social, Zappos, AOL and now eBay all reporting damages in the news recently.