The data breach at eBay that allowed hackers to gain access to the private information of 145 million accounts may go down as the second-largest online security breach in history, according to a report from Reuters.
In October of last year, hackers infiltrated the security systems of Oracle, compromising 152 million accounts.
eBay announced the data breach Wednesday, although the cyberattack reportedly happened between late February and early March. The company advised all users to change their passwords immediately.
eBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller told Reuters that hackers copied a “large part” of customers’ personal information, such as email addresses, passwords, birth dates, and mailing addresses, but did not gain access to customers’ credit card or other financial information.
“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,” Miller said.
On Thursday, Connecticut, Florida, and Illinois announced they would be investigating eBay for the data breach. According to Reuters, the quick opening of an investigation is proof that governments are serious about protecting consumers from large-scale security breaches, which are becoming more common; in addition to the Oracle attack last year, a Target security breach last December resulted in 40 million credit card numbers and 70 million personal accounts being compromised. Target’s CEO, Gregg Steinhafel, and CIO, Beth Jacobs, both resigned in the aftermath of the breach.
Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, told Reuters, “There is definitely a climate shift. The departure of the Target CEO over the problem signals inside the boardroom and in the halls of government that these are betrayals of customers and that they won’t be tolerated.”
As of Thursday afternoon, eBay still had not provided information on the security breach on its home page when accessed in the United States, according the report.
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