Online auction giant eBay may have become the latest major online retailer to fall victim to a hacker, now that the company has issued a call for users to change their passwords.
However, shortly after eBay issued the statement online, the company removed it soon after from its PayPal online payment unit’s press and community website pages.
As a sister company to eBay, PayPal has assured its users that it appears not to have been affected by any attempted intrusion by a malicious source. “Extensive forensic research has shown no evidence of unauthorised access or compromise to personal or financial information for PayPal customers,” PayPal said.
According to Engadget, eBay has acted rather peculiar about the whole affair, with its official statement saying that whomever was responsible for the hack has “compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data”.
The hacking appears to have involved a small number of eBay employees’ log-in credentials. This means every user’s password is vulnerable and should be changed as soon as possible.
The statement went on to say the company will begin emailing all its users, informing them of the need to change their password, as well as possibly changing the same password on other sites as they, too, could be compromised.
