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Ebay Hacked!

22 May 2014

eBay is the world's most popular auction website, with hundreds of millions of users all over the world.

Now you'd think that if anyone could dedicate the resources and "smarts" needed to deliver as close to 100% security as possible, it'd be a company like eBay -- right?

Well unfortunately, the company has reportedly suffered a pretty major security breach which has resulted in the names, addresses, birth dates and other information of its users being stolen by hackers.

The Telegraph has a report which describes the situation.

Although eBay claims that no financial data such as credit-card details or whatever were compromised, it should be more than a little worrying that eBay also owns PayPal.

Surely, if eBay's security is so easily compromised by determined individuals, there are no guarantees that PayPal's defenses are any stronger.

Can you imagine the mayhem and outrage if Paypal was hacked and the credit-card details of hundreds of millions of folk were effectively collected/used by a bunch of evil little sods.

Given that the eBay hack occurred back in late February but wasn't actually noticed until earlier this month -- how can those with PayPal accounts be truly sure that someone hasn't been spending up large using their account?

Check your credit-card statements today -- just in case

This latest revelation is a wonderful reminder that *no* security is foolproof and only a fool will assume otherwise.

Vigilance is essential when performing any online transactions or subscribing to any service which keeps personal or financial data.

Always keep your passwords "fresh", complex and unique so as to mitigate (as much as possible) the effects of an event such as the eBay one and remain on guard for any form of phishing, redirection or other social/software engineering that could result in *you* inadvertently handing over your login credentials to those who ought not have them.

Actually, given the proliferation of hacking and phishing, I really think that more public education should be provided to the general population. We're told "don't drink and drive" in an effort to reduce road accidents and deaths -- maybe we should also become more pro-active in educating the "great unwashed" as to what's "best practice" when online.

The fact that we so regularly see Kiwis who've been cleaned out by dating, advance-fees or other scams is proof that we're not doing enough in delivering this education.

The cyber-streets are mean streets. Time to ensure everyone is street-wise?

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