Three States Launch Probe of eBay Cyber-Attack

Three states have begun an investigation into the huge computer theft of personal information from the Internet giant, eBay.

Connecticut, Florida, and Illinois are working together on the investigation.

EBay announced Wednesday that its customer information had been hacked, but did not specify how many people were affected.

The company said no credit card numbers or financial data was stolen since the company's PayPal subsidiary encrypts and stores that information separately.

However, thieves got customer names, passwords, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, and birthdates - enough information to help set up identity theft.

Many eBay users are upset that the company didn't do more to let them know about the theft.

Meanwhile, eBay is advising its 145 million customers to change their passwords.

"This is not a breach that only hurts eBay. This is a breach that hurts all websites," Reuters quoted Michael Coates, director of product security with Shape Security.