EBay Demonstrates How Not to Respond to a Huge Data Breach

[Golden]

Losing control of more than 100 million customers’ information is an increasingly common corporate crisis. Flubbing the public revelation of that breach and failing to tell most of your customers represents a more special form of train wreck.

In the wake of eBay’s revelation earlier this week that it had lost as many as 145 million customers’ data, eBay users and security response professionals say they’ve been increasingly angered and amazed at the company’s ham-fisted public response to an incident that’s already sparked multiple government investigations. EBay’s mistakes include taking days to post a notice about the breach on eBay.com and confusing users as to whether their PayPal accounts had also been affected. As of Friday afternoon, many–if not the majority–of the site’s users still had received no email notification about the breach.

EBay Demonstrates How Not to Respond to a Huge Data Breach | Threat Level | WIRED

 

[lehnerus2000]

Lobbied against penalties

I was reading an article on ZDNet that stated EBay had only recently lobbied the Government to drop the idea of fining incompetent companies for data breaches.
eBay argued against stronger privacy breach penalties | ZDNet

IMO, the Government should slap a $1B fine on these clowns, as they were obviously lobbying whilst:

• Being aware that a data breach had occurred
• Covering up this data breach

Of course that would never happen under our new Government (they are even more corrupt and/or incompetent than the last lot).

 

[Ranger4]

I was reading an article on ZDNet that stated EBay had only recently lobbied the Government to drop the idea of fining incompetent companies for data breaches.
eBay argued against stronger privacy breach penalties | ZDNet

IMO, the Government should slap a $1B fine on these clowns, as they were obviously lobbying whilst:

• Being aware that a data breach had occurred
• Covering up this data breach

Of course that would never happen under our new Government (they are even more corrupt and/or incompetent than the last lot).

How absolutely correct you are about this. With all the deregulation happening here we will be ripped off by these unscrupulous businesses, that couldn't care 2 hoots about the customer, only their damned bottom line.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
While not getting into the realms of Aussie politics -- the problem actually lies MORE with THE CONSUMER and not businesses

a) if people want the CHEAPEST Food etc and encourage Supermarkets to get whatever they can at the cheapest cost instead of using / supporting LOCAL supplies (where feasible) and local farmers then of course total control is lost -- for example look at the ridiculous long supply chains of some European food producers -- leading to that "Horse Meat" fiasco in Holland, UK, Germany etc.

b) same with IT -- if stuff is offshored particularly to an area where wages are relatively low, there's a HUGE disparity between the rich and poor, and where bribery and corruption are a way of life then you've only yourselves to blame

if customers decided to pay a little more to LOCAL companies shich are subject to proper legislation and scrutiny then most of these fiascos wouldn't happen --you can't blame businesses into sourcing the cheapest at all costs if that's what the customer wants.

Education of the implications of this route is VITAL. - I'd TAX companies DOUBLE for every single job they off shore unless it can be RIGOROUSLY proved there is no other solution.

(One day the Aussie Cricket team might be Off shored to Iceland if this trend continues !!).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Boozad]

Consumers aren't to blame for anything eBay do, we don't dictate the fees and charges they set. While I agree with you, it certainly doesn't apply to eBay or Paypal.

 

[TVeblen]

In my years of using EBay I have found their website to be consistently lacking in consumer information, clear policy statements, user help, and direct support. You've got to really work to find that info. They have been intentionally obtuse for a long time. "Your problem not ours" has been the mantra.
So no surprise here that the mantra followed them into this breach.

 

[HammerHead]

The Cloud

Can anyone relate things of this type to "The Cloud"? I see this and at the same time am hearing the call to all the advantages of "The Cloud".

My advice, beware.

 

[Boozad]

In my years of using EBay I have found their website to be consistently lacking in consumer information, clear policy statements, user help, and direct support. You've got to really work to find that info. They have been intentionally obtuse for a long time. "Your problem not ours" has been the mantra.
So no surprise here that the mantra followed them into this breach.

In my experience eBay will only react when it starts costing them money. I used to sell comic books regularly on there when I closed my online store down and quickly built up a very good reputation as a solid seller with good prices (on BINs), accurate grading and second to none customer service racking up nearly 800 positive feedback.

I sold a Buy It Now once to a guy who messaged me asking if I could ship the next day (Thursday) when my listings all blatantly stated I would ship Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. I agreed as the price was worth the extra rushing around. He ended up spending over £700 within a couple of weeks with me, and a lot of that was private sales outside eBay, but he became ridiculously demanding to the point of emailing me every twenty minutes asking proof of delivery even though he knew what time I finished work (how mad is that?).

He never left me feedback for the successful eBay transactions, and even though I knew what was coming I ended up blocking him as a buyer as I couldn't be doing with his scary obsessiveness and demanding nature. I received plenty of vulgar emails from him and ultimately ended up telling to go forth and reproduce with himself in not so many words. And lo and behold the negative feedbacks landed, and they weren't just negative they were abusive and bang out of order.

I called eBay and told them what had happened and that the feedback needed removing. They agreed after an hour long phonecall but they never did anything about it. This was maybe twelve months or so ago and I stopped selling on there shortly after, mainly because I lost interest in selling my comic collection. Fast forward to last week and eBay emailed me telling me they had removed unwarranted feedback and DSRs from my account as they like to protect good sellers.
All they like to protect is their bottom line. If I's carried on selling regularly the feedback would never have been removed.

eBay and Paypal are disgusting companies and it really bugs me each and every time I use them.

 

[jimroad471]

I don't know what anyone could do with my ebay account but paypal I hope is safe. password change is pretty simple. I remember yrs ago when a a site I bought from a lot sent me an email that they may have been hacked. then they said it is wise to change credit card info to play it safe. so ....I did

jim

 

[ThisIsMadness91]

I still haven't received an e-mail notification, and wouldn't have known about the breach if my dad didn't happen to see it on the BBC news website a few days ago.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Education of the implications of this route is VITAL. - I'd TAX companies DOUBLE for every single job they off shore unless it can be RIGOROUSLY proved there is no other solution.

I have a similar idea.

Since businesses claim that their greatest expense is paying wages, eliminate most (if not all) tax concessions and allow companies to claim >100% concession for wages paid to local tax paying citizen workers (excluding management and/or BOD remuneration).

This could actually provide incentive for businesses to pay higher wages or hire more local workers.

(One day the Aussie Cricket team might be Off shored to Iceland if this trend continues !!).

India seems to be where all the money is (in the world of cricket).

 

[fudge]

In my years of using EBay I have found their website to be consistently lacking in consumer information, clear policy statements, user help, and direct support. You've got to really work to find that info. They have been intentionally obtuse for a long time. "Your problem not ours" has been the mantra.
So no surprise here that the mantra followed them into this breach.

In my experience eBay will only react when it starts costing them money. I used to sell comic books regularly on there when I closed my online store down and quickly built up a very good reputation as a solid seller with good prices (on BINs), accurate grading and second to none customer service racking up nearly 800 positive feedback.

I sold a Buy It Now once to a guy who messaged me asking if I could ship the next day (Thursday) when my listings all blatantly stated I would ship Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. I agreed as the price was worth the extra rushing around. He ended up spending over £700 within a couple of weeks with me, and a lot of that was private sales outside eBay, but he became ridiculously demanding to the point of emailing me every twenty minutes asking proof of delivery even though he knew what time I finished work (how mad is that?).

He never left me feedback for the successful eBay transactions, and even though I knew what was coming I ended up blocking him as a buyer as I couldn't be doing with his scary obsessiveness and demanding nature. I received plenty of vulgar emails from him and ultimately ended up telling to go forth and reproduce with himself in not so many words. And lo and behold the negative feedbacks landed, and they weren't just negative they were abusive and bang out of order.

I called eBay and told them what had happened and that the feedback needed removing. They agreed after an hour long phonecall but they never did anything about it. This was maybe twelve months or so ago and I stopped selling on there shortly after, mainly because I lost interest in selling my comic collection. Fast forward to last week and eBay emailed me telling me they had removed unwarranted feedback and DSRs from my account as they like to protect good sellers.
All they like to protect is their bottom line. If I's carried on selling regularly the feedback would never have been removed.

eBay and Paypal are disgusting companies and it really bugs me each and every time I use them.

Then don't. I quit whenever it was that they made you start using pay pal. I got hacked out of pay pal to the tune of $350 and it took 3 weeks to get my money back. Never again.

 

[Boozad]

Then don't.

I haven't sold on there in over a year.

 

[TVeblen]

Hey! I got an email from EBay this morning telling me to change my password. 5 days. There are people awake there!

 

[Joan Archer]

Got my email from them on Sunday, 25th, I did change it even though I very rarely go to eBay just the odd occasion to buy something.

 

[ThisIsMadness91]

I got mine just a few minutes ago.