Ina Steiner EcommerceBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on ecommerce.
by Ina Steiner, Editor of EcommerceBytes.com
Sat Feb 1 2014 17:04:02

eBay UK Hacked?

By: Ina Steiner

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Mashable says the Syrian Electronic Army is claiming it hacked eBay and PayPal websites, using MarkMonitor to allow it to "replace the homepages of eBay and PayPal in France, Israel and the UK with its own logo."

See update below for eBay's statement.

A user on the eBay UK forums posted on ‎01-02-2014 05:47 PM (eBay UK time), ""has any member had this when clicking on ebay today "Hacked by the electronic syrian army.""

Someone responded with a link to another thread where a poster wrote, "has ebay been hacked by the free syrian army. or is it my pc ......" and another replied, "Not just you, I took a screen grab of it. Only seems to be ebay.co.uk earlier today. Shows Syrian army slogan and stars, very worrying they can hack such a promenant website."

Another user on the eBay UK boards posted today, "Anyone else getting an error page when trying to get onto ebay?  Been like this for over an hour now!" and displaying a screenshot showing "Default Website Page."


Someone replied, "From a couple of other posts I think there might have been a DOS attack by the Syrian electronic army sometime today."

Mashable says a representative from the hacking group told the publication it did not target users' account information but rather was in protest of the company.

We've got an inquiry into eBay and PayPal and will update this story as we learn more.

Update 2/1/14: eBay spokesperson Ryan Moore emailed the following statement:

"For a brief period today, a very limited number of people visiting certain PayPal and eBay marketing pages in the UK, France and India were redirected. The issue was quickly detected and resolved. No customer data was accessed by these redirects, and no customer accounts were affected. We take the security and privacy of our customers very seriously and are actively investigating the reasons behind the temporary redirects."



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Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

by: andrewjtitcombe This user has validated their user name.

Sat Feb 1 17:29:24 2014

We had a FREE listing day on eBay UK today so both my wife and I have been on site all day. ALSO we sold stuff on another ID and I was able to access to print postage etc. ALSO have transferred funds from PayPal to bank account. All round no sight of any problems but should I be changing passwords? May explain why we have had very few sales when we have more stuff listed than ever before

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: NaruMessenger

Sat Feb 1 19:13:53 2014

I counted 9 XSS redirect phishing scams on motors.ebay.co.uk today. Wonder why they won't fix it?

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: Ming the Merciless

Sat Feb 1 20:06:11 2014

Lyin' Ryan can't be taken seriously, either.

Those affected should change both their passwords immediately and then make sure their PayPal accounts have no suspicious activity.

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: NaruMessenger

Sat Feb 1 20:18:01 2014

Gotta love that canned eBay response. Hacking eBay is so easy, even a cave man can do it!  

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: ebayisajoke

Sat Feb 1 22:41:38 2014

I would love to know why John Donahoe isn't doing anything about the redirect XSS script hacking in eBay Motors.

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: Ming the Merciless

Sat Feb 1 23:48:49 2014

John Donahoe's PC is a Commodore which explains why he can't remove redirects.

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: Philip Cohen

Sun Feb 2 00:55:37 2014

"Even though people think I'm an expert at technological innovation, my own instinct for technology was frozen in place in 1982." - John Donahoe (26 Sep 2007) ...
[On the first part, who could possibly think that? On the second, a few of the only true words that Johnny Ho has ever spoken ... http://bit.ly/YvxFEg]

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: Philip Cohen

Sun Feb 2 05:33:17 2014

Funny, eBay does not have any trouble filtering some (but not all) listings for email addresses, web site addresses, et al, but can’t be bothered filtering listing for these XSS “redirect” scams; I guess it’s a matter of prioritizing fixes, or maybe they just don’t care because these redirect scams are not directly costing them; but, in fact, it is costing them, their reputation, which is now approaching rock bottom, even amongst previous eBay fan boys; more and more eBay users are coming out of the woodwork and bagging eBay all over the internet—Isn’t the internet great …

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: NaruMessenger

Sun Feb 2 19:40:24 2014

There's talk about it on the ebay uk forums. I guess eBay don't care about their sites reputation. It takes trust to make a long distance vehicle deal work. eBay has killed that trust, and when the word goes around that scammers have gamed their system and are phishing for suckers folks avoid the site like the plague. Between the scammers, crap merchants peddling carp and lying about it, and the deadbeat bidders, eBay Motors is nothing but a sleaze pit.

A lot of us tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen!

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

This user has validated their user name. by: Rexford

Mon Feb 3 07:19:47 2014

Funny how I always learn about these things on ecommercebytes.

Ina and David, I honestly think eBay owe you money for doing their job.  You guys beat them to the punch every time, and with much more accurate and detailed information--not some PR spin.

Perminate Link for eBay UK Hacked?   eBay UK Hacked?

by: DonC This user has validated their user name.

Thu Feb 6 03:56:25 2014

"Ars Technica asked, "If presumably savvy companies get hoodwinked, what hope is there for everyone else?""

Obviously Ars Technica has been hoodwinked if they think Ebay is a savvy company.  



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