Is the Important eBay Password Reset Required Email Legitimate or a Scam?

ebay password update notice
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If you got an email from eBay saying “Important – eBay Password Reset Required”, and are wondering whether it is a scam or legitimate, you’re not alone. Here’s the scoop.

The email from eBay is actually legitimate. If, as we always tell you to do, you go directly to the site (rather than following a link in the email, although you will note that eBay didn’t even include a link – good for them!), you will see this notice on their front page:

ebay password notice on site

And eBay is actually doing it very cleverly. When you log in with your old password (i.e. to change your password), instead of letting you change it directly, they will send a link to one of your known contact points – email, text, or phone call:

ebay reset your password

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So, do heed this notice, and go reset your eBay password.

Here’s the full text of the email notice:

IMPORTANT: PASSWORD UPDATE

Dear eBay Member,

To help ensure customers’ trust and security on eBay, I am asking all eBay users to change their passwords.

Here’s why: Recently, our company discovered a cyberattack on our corporate information network. This attack compromised a database containing eBay user passwords.

What’s important for you to know: We have no evidence that your financial information was accessed or compromised. And your password was encrypted.

What I ask of you: Go to eBay and change your password. If you changed your password on May 21 or later, we do not need you to take any additional action at this time.

Changing your password may be inconvenient. I realize that. We are doing everything we can to protect your data and changing your password is an extra precautionary step, in addition to the other security measures we have in place.

If you have only visited eBay as a guest user, we do not have a password on file.

If you used the same eBay password on any other site, I encourage you to change your password on those sites too. And if you are a PayPal user, we have no evidence that this attack affected your PayPal account or any PayPal financial information, which is encrypted and stored on a separate secure network.

Here are other steps we are taking:
As always, we have strong protections in place for both buyers and sellers in the event of any unauthorized activity on your account.
We are applying additional security to protect our customers.
We are working with law enforcement and leading security experts to aggressively investigate the matter.

Here’s what we know: This attack occurred between late February and early March and resulted in unauthorized access to a database of eBay users that includes customers’ name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth.

However, the file did not contain financial information. And, after conducting extensive testing and analysis of our systems, we have no evidence that any customer financial or credit card information was involved. We also have no indication of a significant spike in fraudulent activity on our site.

We apologize for any inconvenience or concern that this situation may cause you. As a global marketplace, nothing is more important to eBay than the security and trust of our customers. We know our customers have high expectations of us, and we are committed to ensuring a safe and secure online experience for you on any connected device.

Devin Wenig
President, eBay Marketplaces

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