EBay is mounting a massive damage limitation exercise after revealing that hackers raided its network three months ago.<br /><br />It’s understood some 145 million user records were accessed, forcing the firm to issue a security warning.<br /><br />But some computing experts want tougher action. Julia Horwitz is on the Consumer Protection Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center: “Changing your password is helpful a couple of times, but after a while you run out of variations on your pet’s name,”<br /><br />“After that the burden really shifts back to the companies and to Congress to make sure all the appropriate protections are in place,” she adds.<br /><br />The thieves are thought to have accessed some 145 million records such as passwords, email addresses, birth dates and other personal information.<br /><br />But eBay, which also works with escrow service PayPal, says financial data, such as credit card numbers, was not taken by the hackers.<br /><br />The breach could go down as the second-biggest in history at a US company, based on the number of records accessed by the hackers.
