Learning from eBay's mistakes

By every definition, the eBay security breach - the one where hackers broke into the main database that stores personal information, including passwords, of the online auction company's 145 million users - is shaping up to be one of the most damaging in history.

Beyond the numbers, though, there's an emerging lesson of how victimized companies should never respond. And it's clear eBay is setting a new low thanks to its bumbling, stumbling response to the break-in.

I wrote an article for Yahoo Canada Finance that summarizes the kinds of behaviours other companies might want to avoid in future, and what's at stake if they fail to learn from eBay's dubious example. Here's the link:

eBay hack: Top 4 things the company did wrong

For what it's worth, this isn't strictly an eBay issue. You don't have to have an eBay account for this to touch you - currently or potentially - in some way. If eBay drops the ball, any company can drop the ball (cough, Target, cough.) Sooner or later, this compromises all of us.