Mystery eBay 'hack' exposes 1,200 accounts, possibly more
eBay is one of the most successful Internet-only ventures of all time, so it's not surprising that it has come under near-constant attack by fraudsters and hackers. In the latest attempt, a hacker logged on to the eBay Trust and Security forums and pretended to post as 1,200 separate users, making it appear as if he had actually logged in with each user's account. The posts contained the users' names, contact information, and credit card numbers.
That done, the hacker posted a video of his exploits on YouTube to celebrate his "achievement" (the video has subsequently been taken down). In response, eBay and LiveWorld—the third-party software firm that operates eBay's web-based forums—took the entire Trust and Security forum offline while they looked into the problem. The forum was taken down 90 minutes after the posts first hit the Web and was put back online later that day.
eBay issued an official statement on its eBay Chatter forum: Some of our readers may have learned of an issue that occurred early this morning on one of our discussion forums. I've been talking with our Account Security and Legal teams, and I'd like to share some more details about this incident.
Very early this morning, a malicious fraudster posted on the Trust & Safety forum on eBay.com posing as approximately 1,200 eBay users. The fraudster made these posts in a way that was intended to appear as though he logged in with their accounts. The posts contained name and contact information, which appears to be valid, and could have been secured as part of an account take over.
The posts ALSO appeared to contain credit card information -- however, these credit cards are not associated with financial information on file for these users at eBay or PayPal. We're in the process of reaching out by phone to these members to, so that if the information is valid somehow -- regardless how this fraudster acquired the information -- these members can take the steps they need to take to protect themselves.
eBay and our forums vendor, LiveWorld, began taking steps to remedy the situation within an hour after it started. As things evolved behind the scenes, a decision was made to make the the Trust & Safety forum unavailable to our Community. It's still temporarily inaccessible, as the teams work on this issue.
3 votes
