[ insider_reports_insider ]
EBay Account Reseller Shut Down
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-03-29
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A Russian-language site had been selling stolen eBay accounts along with a few pilfered PayPal accounts until their operation was uncovered and put to an end.
 | | Site Busted Selling Stolen eBay and PayPal Accounts |  |
Alex Eckelberry's Sunbelt Blog recounted the discovery of the illicit site recently. Written in Russian, the site offered eBay accounts for sale.
The sale price varied depending on the feedback of the account. Better feedback equaled a higher asking price. Feedback of 50 or more raised the price to $25 for the account; an account with a minimal feedback of 10 or less could be bought for $5.
According to Eckelberry, the criminals behind the site used a Trojan to steal account information from users; they probably accomplished this with a keylogger. The thieves preferred accounts with minimal activity by their legitimate owners, and frequently picked up the actual account holder email address with their thefts.
Those behind the site even displayed a list of user Ids for sale, with links to their profiles. That page also displayed the country of origin for each profile.
A whois lookup for the site, ebayseller.cc, reveals it was registered through Tucows by a California company with a technical contact in Toronto.
Since the California contact used an email address on Gmail, and a peek at Google Local shows the company address in question in a residential neighborhood, it is likely that part of the registration has been faked. A reverse lookup on the phone number provided yielded no information.
Working with the ISP hosting the site, eBay managed to have it shut down, Computerworld reported. An eBay spokesperson quoted in the report said, "We're in contact with law enforcement to track down the perpetrators and we're going to vigorously pursue this investigation to ensure they are prosecuted."
---
Tags: eBay, Trojan, phishing
Add to | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web
Get all the updates in RSS: 
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
More insider_reports_insider Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
