After several high profile hacks of sites, eBay is the latest to be hit, now telling users to change their passwords as a result.
Ever bought anything on eBay? Maybe a last minute gift or a hard to find item? Or maybe you’re one of the site’s most trusted sellers, with eBay becoming a global marketplace for the stuff that you can’t find anywhere else or for the things that you just can’t afford to purchase at full price. Indeed, eBay is incredibly useful which is why the trade site had over 100 million active users (i.e users who visit or use the site regularly) as of February 2013. That many people buying and selling things via the site equals a whole lot of people sending money around and so the news that eBay was recently the target of a cyber attack could be very concerning indeed.
According to eBay, the company (which also owns money transaction service PayPal) was recently under threat of a cyber attack. It’s unclear if the attack was some sort of failed DDoS (Distirbuted Denial of Service) attack which would effectively just stop people visiting the site or if it was an active attempt to get into eBay’s servers on account of the aforementioned money that it deals with, but what is clear is that company have asked all of its users (on both eBay and PayPal, where the password message was also posted) to change their passwords.
So important was the notification that initially, eBay released an update on both the eBay and PayPal sites regarding the password change with just a headline revealing that there had been some sort of attack on their sites, with the body of the message which would have been used to described the situation simply reading as “Placeholder text”. This hastily posted message was eventually removed but the actual issue of the cyber attack was confirmed by eBay via an official statement that explained that the hacker “compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data”. So thankfully it doesn’t seem as though any users’ financial information is under threat but eBay recommend changing your eBay and PayPal passwords nonetheless.
Source: engadget
Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, ZTE Open C Firefox Phone Goes on an Exclusive Sale on eBay for $99, Pebble’s New Android Appstore Features eBay, Evernote and TWC Apps
