Hacking experience and preventative measures . . .

[jaffaartist]

I’m posting this because it might be helpful to other members.

I recently discovered my eBay account had been hacked and a purchase made for £160, this had been hidden in the list of purchased items and I only discovered it from my Visa card statement. I had three accounts linked to my eBay account; for purchases my Visa credit card and PayPay and a bank account for payments.  The fraudulent transaction was made on my Visa credit card, I am assuming because once the hacker was into my eBay account no further password or security was required when using the credit card option, whereas PayPal requires and another password to complete a purchase. 
 

On a positive note when I got to speak to eBay they were very helpful in resolving this as was Visa and I now have the money refunded to my Visa account.

My computer has the latest operating system and up to date virus and security, plus I have had no problems with any other online accounts, this leaves me to believe it was eBay that was hacked and not me.

I have done two things to prevent a reoccurrence of this (in addition to the obvious password change) ; removed my Visa credit card as a payment option (now PayPal only) and created a new bank account to receive payments, with only a small amount of money to be kept in this account.  I have been on Ebay for many years and will continue to be but after this incident I do have worries about the security, I’m hoping the removal of the stored credit card info particularly will prevent this happening again.

[red_magpie]

this leaves me to believe it was eBay that was hacked and not me.

That is highly unlikely and not an explanation to promulgate as a reason for accounts being hacked.

The fact is that very few accounts are actually "hacked" these days; strictly speaking, hacking refers to discovering a password by deduction, guesswork or "brute force" hacking using software that makes multiple password attempts .

Most purportedly hacked accounts are more correctly described as hijacked, because the account holder has fallen for one of the endless phishing emails. These trick them into entering their password into a fake login page, which often tries to panic them with phoney warnings about a high value payment being taken or their account being closed unless they respond.

[jaffaartist]

I am old and wise enough not to fall for any phishing emails and I am still of the opinion this was not something that happened on my side.  I was pleased with the speed that eBay and Visa resolved this but it has shaken my faith in the security of not only eBay but all sites that have the option to store credit card details.  It won't stop me using eBay or other sites but on eBay I will only be using PayPal from now on and I will be entering my credit card details manually on other sites when I make a purchase, sure it takes another 30 seconds but better safe than sorry.