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“Changing passwords is a best practice and will help enhance security for eBay users.” This warning spread with the speed of light in the last two days, since the world received clear information related to a massive cyberattack that hit eBay.
We truly hope you did change your password, but if you didn’t, here are some news and information to urge to you to take all necessary security measures.
Following the timeline, we will start with the data breach that hit eBay. According to the reports, unknown hackers managed to decrypt their way into eBay’s staff log – in information around 2 – 3 months ago.
To narrow the time frame, officials said the attack took place between late February and early March. Having at their disposal the employees’ info, the hackers managed to steal encrypted personal data of eBay users. The data mostly consists of personal e-mails, phone numbers, physical address, full names and birth dates. However, there is no proof that the hackers managed to steal financial data, such as credit – card numbers or PayPal information.
However, the attack was indeed massive. The most recent reports tell us that the eBay data breach affected 145 million users whose personal information are now at the discretion of still anonymous cyber – attackers. The problem is even bigger than one thinks. Of course, you can change your password and it is recommended to do it as fast as you can. Also, you should change all your passwords from all your accounts and websites and hope for the best.
The security breach and the personal information theft can lead in the immediate future to major problems for other websites and the users themselves. In an extensive article, Reuters alerts people on the potential fraud wave that could hit without us even knowing it:
Security experts advised EBay customers to be on the alert for fraud, especially if they used the same passwords for other accounts.
“This is not a breach that only hurts EBay. This is a breach that hurts all websites,” said Michael Coates, director of product security with Shape Security.
He said that companies typically only ask users to change passwords if they believes there is a reasonable chance attackers may unscramble encrypted passwords.
Once the passwords are unscrambled, attackers could use automated software that seeks to log into thousands of popular services, including Facebook, Twitter, popular email services and online banking sites, he said.
On the other hand, now that we know that the eBay data breach affected 145 million users, we can try to take some safety measures. Changing passwords and reinforcing our security is one thing, but we should also be in alert for suspicious Internet activity that uses our names and e-mails: social media accounts we don’t recognize as being ours, shopping orders we don’t do, emails we don’t send, unsolicited text messages we receive and so on.
eBay was always a company that really took care of its customers, this is why no financial fraud or suspect transactions have been identified, as eBay keeps our financial data separately from our personal ones. However, such disasters can happen to the best and most secured of the companies and we should all be aware of the consequences.
