eBay hacking and lessons learnt to stay secured online


Did you panic when there were reports of several eBay accounts being hacked recently? Did you change your eBay password after hearing about the hacking of eBay accounts? Kindly read further to know details of the eBay cyber attack and how it affected millions of eBay users. Here, I have shared several useful lessons learnt from this episode that shall allow internet users to stay safe online.

Are you a regular buyer on eBay? Well, this may be an update that matters to you the most. A cyber attack on the data base of the e-commerce major has proved to be quite critical. Online hackers have made way with details of 145 million eBay customers. The details that have been stolen are names, emails, postal addresses, phone numbers & birth dates. There were no financial data losses but there were encrypted passwords that were stolen. So, what is to be worried of? In this article, we shall check out some useful tips for eBay users to avoid any adverse impact of this cyber attack on their personal accounts. In other words, I shall list few important lessons learned from this episode that will help internet users to browse such websites in a safe and secured manner.

Impact of eBay cyber attack


The first thing that you have to do is change your eBay password. The company has taken a head start on this activity by telling all their users to change their password because of the attack. Since the data stolen is mostly personal details, a hacker would easily be able to contact you either from eBay, your bank or even a firm that promises a return on payment. This has been experienced several times over the past. The eBay hacking has put several agencies on high alert only because of this.

Of course, you may think that the chances are negligible that you would be under this eBay cyber attack. The chances however are slightly higher. With the stolen details at their disposal, hackers would be able to contact you in the future too. Especially if they are able to figure out more details about you thanks to your address details and the link to Facebook. A mail from your banker or other financial institution asking for your account numbers or even a password reset could be a method – in all probability it could be a problem that needs to be resolved or even a security threat as per the bank. Looking at the mass scale of information available with this data breach, it would be rather easy to target all the 145 million customers. Even if a minor percentage falls for this setup, the losses inclined would be huge. In most cases, the hackers would send the target to an external landing page that is duplicated of the local bank, where they would store the transactional data. So, the more important question – how do you protect yourself from this situation?

Preventive measures for eBay users to safeguard against cyber attack


  1. Firstly, change the password you have set on your eBay account. This should be done as soon as possible.

  2. The obvious target then on for the hackers would be to try the email and password combinations at other online venues and frequently visited websites by you. So change the phrase to something new to make sure that you are completely safe.

  3. Keep your passwords as strong as possible and include symbols like '* & % $ #' if possible.

  4. It would be wise to change your passwords often and also keep an application that stores your passwords and keeps that information of yours as safe as possible. May be, using a password manager could be a wise thing to do. In case, you had a unique password for your eBay account – you carry considerably less risk.

  5. Avoid sharing / storing your passwords in your email account. Also, avoid sharing any bank details through emails or similar online medium. This will make your confidential information prone to attacks from hackers.

  6. Whenever you do any online shopping via eBay (and similar sites) or carry out internet banking transactions, please make sure that you delete the browser history and cookies before as well as after the transaction.

  7. With the increasing craze for cashback websites and online shopping discount coupon codes, make sure that you do not trust every email sharing some coupon code with you. Always validate whether the coupon code is shared by a genuine website that you have registered for.


The entire hacking scene has changed the dynamics of internet usage all over the world. There have been reports of people blaming eBay for their shoddy handling of the cyber attack issue. People need to learn from their own mistakes and ensure preventive measures are taken to avoid any bad impact of such attacks in future. It is important that each one of us follows the above mentioned simple rules for safe and secured online browsing on similar websites.

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Comments

Author: Timmappa Kamat19 Feb 2015 Member Level: Gold   Points : 2

Thats indeed a great piece of info. Tips you have provided will definitely go a long way to help users stay protected against the hacking. Kudos for the efforts.



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