This morning a hacker posted what appears to be the personal contact information and credit card data of 1,200 eBay users on the company's Trust & Safety forums, which were promptly pulled offline to prevent the information from being accessed
An eBay spokeswoman said the posts were most likely the result of account takeovers and not of a security breach on eBay. Although eBay verified that the names and contact information was accurate, the company claims the credit card numbers contained in the posts were not those eBay or PayPal had on file for those users.
The auction site has been a frequent target of malicious behavior due to its large traffic volume and financial data. Earlier this year, eBay experienced another security breach when a hacker calling himself Vladuz accessed the site's private servers so he could pose as an official customer service representative in user forums.
eBay said that it is now in the process of contacting the affected users by phone so that they can "take the steps they need to protect themselves," while the company works alongside its forums vendor LiveWorld to try to remedy and trace the incident.