Fast change your password at Ebay, as the world’s top online marketplace has been breached by hackers. The cyber attack has compromised eBay’s user database, which contained around 145 million encrypted users details including passwords, address, phone numbers and more.
According to a press release from Ebay, the cyber attack was carried out three months ago between late February and early March, by which hackers were able to get hold of a database that contains its customers data. The compromised database contains email addresses, encrypted passwords, birth dates, mailing addresses and other information of customers. Luckily the database doesn’t contain any financial information like Credit Card details.
In wake of this massive breach, Ebay has asked its users to change their password immediately and also asked change password on other sites where you may have been using the same Ebay password. It is always recommended to use different passwords for different sites and accounts along with 2 factor authentication any where possible.
eBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller told Reuters that “the company was making the request “out of an abundance of caution” and that it used “sophisticated,” proprietary hashing and salting technology to protect the passwords. There is no evidence of impact on any eBay customers. We don’t know that they decrypted the passwords because it would not be easy to do.”
How to change the password?
- Go to Ebay.com or Ebay.in (country specific) by manually typing the link on the browser address bar
- Go to your account settings page after login-in
- From there click on the Personal Information and then change your password
- Note that the authentic eBay password reset email will not have any embedded links.DO NOT CLICK but instead DELETE, as it could be a phishing attempt.
- Change password by go to Ebay only
According to Ebay the breach happened after hackers obtained login credentials for a small number of Ebay employees, allowing them to access eBay’s corporate network. They discovered about the security breach on May and immediately brought in security experts and law enforcement to investigate.
“Our team is committed to making eBay as safe and secure as possible. We are looking at other ways to strengthen security on eBay. In the coming days and weeks we may be introducing new security features. We’ll keep you updated as we do” says Devin Wenig President, eBay Marketplaces on a public notice.