The Day eBay Germany Lost Its Site

Saturday 28th August 2004 will be remembered by eBay Germany for some years to come. On this day, instead of going to the normal eBay website, German web surfers ended up at a scam eBay site. Normally an internet user would get an email that would direct them to a scam site, this way gaining valuable credit card numbers, financial data and other sensitive information. But in this instance, a normal, legitimate auction web site had been hijacked to fool any unsuspecting surfer. A very rare and unusual scam attempt.

Jan Libbenga, from www.theregister.co.uk, reported that several eBay visitors to the bogus auction site have made claims that this site tried to read login names and passwords from cookies on their PCs. It was also reported that unknown criminals requested a DNS (domain name server) transfer for several high profile sites, including the German eBay online auction domain name. But while most of the requested DNS transfers were denied, somehow German eBay site slipped through the net.

An Investigation Has Started

eBay in Germany and the official German domain name registry DeNIC have started an investigation, but are baffled how a partly successful domain hijacking scam remained unnoticed for several hours.

German eBay officials have asked how their domain name could have been transferred without their explicate consent. Normally when a website owner chooses to relocate its website to new server facilities, it has to instruct the domain name service of its new IP address. This is a simple and automated process usually with several measures in place to prevent hijacking attempts.

Although DeNIC corrected the transfer, eBay in Germany and its users may have lost substantial revenue because the original auction site was unavailable for several hours. DeNic claim that the eBay scam site officially belongs to a man from Niedersachsen in Germany, but this man denies any involvement.

About the Author

James Robinson is an Australian writer, broadcaster and commentator. He lives in the world famous Blue Mountains of Sydney.

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