Has eBay experienced some kind of security breach? For now there has not been any official word but according to a post by eBay on PayPal’s website (eBay owns PayPal, for those wondering. Page has since been taken down.), it seems that the company is planning on asking its users to change their passwords.
Unfortunately apart from the rather telling title, not much else is known. As you can see in the screenshot above, only the title is visible and what is supposed to be in the content area has two words that read, “Placeholder text”. Perhaps there’s nothing to be worried about, perhaps there is, who knows, but as it stands nothing has been posted on eBay’s own website either.
We’ll be keeping our eyes and ears peeled for more information. In the meantime the folks at Engadget have reached out to eBay to find out if there’s anything going on, or if the post was done in error and that there’s nothing to be worried about. However for those who are feeling a little paranoid and concerned about their eBay and PayPal accounts, perhaps you’ll want to change those passwords anyway, just to be safe.
Alternatively, some have speculated that if this is a hack, changing your passwords could allow the hackers to capture your new ones via man-in-the-middle attacks, so holding off might not be such a bad idea either. Until then we suggest that no one panics until the official reason/details have been revealed.