Dabs customers caught in Internet security breach
Published: 14 Sep 2001 17:22 BST
The credit card details of 127 Dabs.com customers were compromised on 7 September by one of the company's software merchants, BuyB4Sold.co.uk.
Seventy-five people who placed bids on software titles listed on the online auction site Dabs.com were emailed a spreadsheet containing the contact details and credit card numbers of other customers who had won bids on the site. Two hours later a second email was sent out by BuyB4Sold.co.uk, warning that the attached Excel document was contaminated with a virus, but was not harmful to systems.
One ZDNet UK News reader was appalled by the negligence of BuyB4Sold.co.uk, and claims to have suffered a "great shock" from the fiasco. "In this occasion it has clearly been highlighted that despite security measures being in place, a serious mistake has happened. I and most others that were involved are wishing to receive some compensation for this error and would like to publicise the possible risks of dealing with 'some' Internet companies," he told ZDNet UK.
BuyB4Sold.co.uk has admitted that the security breach was caused by a "human error". Dabs.com is not obliged to accept responsibility for the action of its merchants, but made the decision to remove the online retailer from its site immediately.
"The security of our own site, Dabs.com, is unaffected by this and no personal details retained on our site have been passed on," said Jonathan Wall, sales and marketing director of Dabs.com. "However, I am concerned that our own customers may have had their trust in online security thwarted and I have done everything in my power to alert them all without delay so that no problems actually arise out of the incident."
BuyB4Sold.co.uk is part of the onehighstreet.co.uk group, which is soon to be linked with the British Internet Service Provider Freeserve.
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