In the wake of identity theft by hackers at a US retailer, at least three states will reportedly probe EBay Inc following the online marketplace's revelations that it was hit by a cyber-attack, Bloomberg reported.
On May 21, the San Jose, California-based company said that a database containing personal information and encrypted passwords were breached. The company further advised its users to change their passwords, but clarified that their credit card number are stored in a separate database. EBay had also said that there were no signs of unauthorized activity resulting from the database breach.
EBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller said, "EBay users should not be concerned about increased financial or credit fraud."
The news agency said that the company's disclosure was a stark contrast to the actions of three public companies in the US who had been unusually quiet with the alleged security breaches. According to a Justice Department indictment, which was unsealed on May 19, the companies, including Alcoa Inc and Allegheny Technologies Inc, failed to report the theft of their trade secrets and other data to their investors when Chinese-based hackers have hacked into confidential information without authorization.
On the other hand, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman yesterday fell short of announcing an official probe on the online marketplace and said about his office's plans regarding eBay's security breach, "The news that EBay has discovered a security breach involving customer data is deeply concerning. Our office has asked and fully expects EBay to provide free credit-monitoring services to customers impacted by this breach."
Bloomberg said that eBay's database breach had followed several high-profile customer-data breaches at Michaels Corp., Neiman Marcus Group Ltd and Target Corp. The breach resulted into an exposure of shopper information, which lead to a litigation and call from some lawmakers to impose a required national notification from companies, especially when a security breach is involved. Yesterday, attorneys generals in Florida, Illinois and Connecticut have expressed their intention to probe eBay's database breach, in addition to other investigations.
