Online shopping rabbit hole eBay might be your source for cat jumpers, blank tapes and other assorted useless crap paraphernalia, but apparently one thing it is not is a bastion of online security. The company revealed it has been the victim of what it calls a “cyberattack” which has compromised a database containing user information such as names, emails, passwords, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.
Though it stresses no financial information was pilfered in the “attack” – and to that end, no PayPal information either, as PayPal runs on a different server – the company will be sending emails to users imploring them to change their passwords as a safety precaution. Of the two types of passwords securing – encryption and hashing – eBay uses the former, which is the by far the more vulnerable of the two methods.
While the company insists that no evidence of unauthorised activity has been uncovered as of now, experts are warning the possible outcomes of this include an increase in email phishing scams sent to users whose information has been accessed.
So if you see any suspicious emails arriving in your inbox, watch out. It could be a scam. Which you wouldn’t click anyway, because it’s 2014 and who honestly falls for phishing scams anymore? I mean, seriously. You’re all smarter than that, right? This isn’t your first time on the internet? There’s not a chance in hell any of you are going to open an email, fall for some dodgy, poorly worded bamboozle and willingly give over all your financial details because some schmuck half a world away randomly asked you to from his beaten up Compaq Presario that’s still somehow running Windows NT. You’re much, much smarter than that.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go transfer a small processing fee so I can rightfully claim my inheritance as the long lost Prince of Namibia.
Photo: Justin Sullivan via Getty Images.
via SMH.
