Vladuz Plants another Hack on eBay

A hacker going by the name 'Vladuz' has penetrated into eBay credentials and used them to perpetrate as an official representative of the company. This is at least the second time that the hacker has managed to pull off the trick, raising the question on eBay's security.

During the past few days, crooks hijacked a number of eBay auctions, many selling expensive items like Cartier Tank watches. The fraudsters added notes to the legitimate auctions suggesting buyers to use a special discount by contacting a Gmail account.

The hacker, believed to belong to Romania, claimed that he knew how to cross the company's boundaries at his will. The ability of the hacker together with the number of accounts he has hacked has created a small group of users who have voiced on the possibility of a backdoor in eBay's security system. However, eBay officials strongly deny the existence of any such backdoor.

The hacker posted a note criticizing eBay on February 22, 2007. It said, "Ugh, eBay is so rude haha."

The intruder did not have access to personal or financial information of any eBay member, eBay spokesperson Harry Durzy told AuctionBytes on February 21, 2007. Durzy said that eBay was aware that a Romanian acquired a few e-mail accounts from some customer service. So he accessed only that information that was in e-mails. E-mail servers operate independently from servers hosting member information.

However, eBay officials acknowledge that Vladuz managed to obtain a few credentials that are enough for him to pretend as a representative from the customer service department. But they assert that servers administering those functions are maintained separately from databases that store sensitive customer records.

Vladuz has succeeded to get to the eBay forums, perhaps the third time, to make "pink postings", said Katherine Carington Smith who is attached with eBay blog Pheebay.com. The pink postings are the colored borders that eBay officials use to designate comments.

According to Durzy, eBay and the US Secret Service and law enforcement body in Romania are working together to bring justice to Vladuz's offense. He said that efforts by law enforcement officials were on so that there is no repeat of such incidences.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/7/2007