Alan Marshall is Professor of Communications Networks in the University of Liverpool’s School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science
“This attack occurred a few months ago but was only discovered in early May.
“It appears that an internal corporate account was used to get access to personal details such as date of birth, phone number and address. However users passwords are encrypted so these are relatively safe for now.
“However eBay recommend users change their passwords ASAP, which should then help to secure their accounts from any unauthorised use.
“I changed my password today.
“There are a number of things that hackers can do with your personal information, including selling it on (in bulk) to other parties, e.g. to receive “spam emails” or mail shots through the post.
“The most serious is probably “Identity Theft”, whereby they can remotely claim to be someone else, using their stolen personal details as verification.
“It is this threat that will likely have major ramifications in how we authenticate ourselves over the internet or even over the phone. The issue of identity throughout the internet is now becoming a major research area for this reason.”
