DISCUSSION
Have hacks damaged Amazon's relationships with third-party sellers and customers?
Written by George Anderson
Source: Amazon.com
Third-party sellers and their customers on the Amazon Marketplace have been victimized by hackers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Hackers have gained access to third-party seller accounts by purchasing email and password information, stolen in past data breaches, from the dark web. Once they have broken into an account, hackers then change the seller's bank deposit information so that the purchases are rerouted to unauthorized accounts. Hackers have also used the accounts of inactive sellers to post fake merchandise at low prices in efforts to defraud customers.
The depth of the problem, according to the Journal's reporting, is not yet clear, but anything that causes sellers and customers to question Amazon is certainly a concern for the business. More than half the sales on Amazon come through the more than two million third-party sellers on the site.
Erik Fairleigh, an Amazon spokesperson, told NBC News that the e-tailer continually takes steps to secure the information of customers and sellers so "they can buy and sell with confidence" on the site.
"There have always been bad actors in the world; however, as fraudsters get smarter so do we," he said.
More than 2.6 billion email addresses and passwords have been stolen from companies including Adobe Systems, LinkedIn, Myspace, River City Media and Tumblr, according to the "Have I been pwned?" website.