Hackers breached eBay's systems in February, gaining access to login credentials and sensitive personal information for approximately 145 million eBay members. It took eBay several days to notify users about the breach and they failed to clearly communicate the severity of the hack or implications for users. This poor response damaged eBay's reputation and a lawsuit followed. While eBay's financials remained strong, the breach compromised user trust and it is unclear how the stolen data may be misused.

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eBay Hacked
Chelsea Smith
Thomas Edison State College
MAR-411

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eBay Hacked
There is no doubt that eBay has the largest power in the online auction industry. From its
humble beginning in San Francisco living room to an international place for auctions and sales.
EBay at the corporate level has become a diversified business that has global reach where
virtually anything can be found. EBay competes using a broad differentiation strategy against
other online auctioneers. Though they do not always support the most inexpensive items they
appeal to all through the variety that can be found. This is why eBay has over 157 million active
user base (Statistica).
EBay has access to customer personal information such as age, address, phone numbers,
and more. The customers trust the big name business with their sensitive information. The
online retailer suffered one of the biggest data breaches for the company. Hackers got ahold of a
number of log-in credentials late February that gained them access to all the sensitive
information of customers. The breach affected roughly 145 million members (Epstein).
Hackers are bound to infiltrate any online business however the anger from users and
security response professionals is failed reaction from eBay. The corporate responsibility lays in
their ability to do everything possible to prevent such an attack but also how they respond and
inform customers. It took corporate days to respond to the notice about the breach on eBay.com.
When users were informed about their accounts being exposed, eBay failed to inform customers
the severity of the hack nor the repercussions that might happen. Users were confused about
what was taken and whether or not their PayPal accounts had been compromised. When clients
finally were informed days had passed and nothing had been done. EBay acted very nonchalant
about the whole ordeal.

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EBay launched a response on the corporate website (ebayinc.com) days later, which is
rarely visited, but eBay failed to mention the breach on the main website (ebay.com). PayPal
responded on their website since they are strongly affiliated with eBay. Once again, PayPal, like
eBay, were vague about why clients should change their eBay password. Finally on a Friday,
eBay asked of its users to change their passwords but failed to mention that their personal
information had be compromised and what it might mean for them.
EBay also put their reputation on the line when they also failed to enforce the password
change and left it up to the user’s discretion. A lawsuit followed as a reaction to the hack and the
lack of proper response (Abel). The reputation of the company was affected by the hack as well
as the lawsuit. This is shown in the NASDAQ value of the company. Transactions sales hit a
downward spike that hit an all-time low in the NASDAQ (yahoo). EBay rebounded with PR
support and reluctant acceptance of responsibility of their reaction.
The financial year and net worth of the company still ran an increase with the only in
fluctuation in the percentage compared to the past years. Fortunately, no financial information
was taken however the reputation of eBay has been compromised. Many of the customers are
worried about what their information that was sold is being used for. Hopefully the information
will be bought from a research company to better understand the customers. The biggest concern
however is the information will be used to in attempt to steal even more intelligence such as
identification and financial information.

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References
EBay: Number of active buyers 2015 | Statistic. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2015, from
http://www.statista.com/statistics/242235/number-of-ebays-total-active-users/
Epstein, Z. (n.d.). EBay Hack. Retrieved May 6, 2015, from http://bgr.com/2014/05/27/ebay-
hack-145-million-accounts-compromised/
ebayinc.com
Abel, J. (n.d.). Judge rules class-action suit against eBay and PayPal may proceed. Retrieved
May 6, 2015, from http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/judge-rules-class-action-suit-
against-ebay-and-paypal-may-proceed-081414.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ebay+Interactive#{}