Zappos Reassures Customers Over Security Breach

There are more than 24 million accounts in the database of the Amazon-owned e-tailer Zappos, and all of them had their information accessed by a hacker recently, according to the Los Angeles Times. Luckily, the hackers did not get access to customers’ full credit-card numbers and payment data was not accessed, the paper notes. But they did get each member’s name, email address, billing address, phone number, the last four digits of their credit card, and a scrambled version of each password, the Times reports.

All Zappos user passwords will need to be reset and CEO Tony Hsieh said in a statement that the company would shut down its phone system and handle all customer relations online due to the massive amount of requests coming in. "Over the next day or so, we will be training everyone on the specifics of how to best help our customers through their password change process now that their passwords have been reset and expired,” he told employees in an email sent o Sunday. “We need all hands on deck to help get through this."

The whole thing left Hsieh worried about how the attach would affect the company’s brand: "We've spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers," Hsieh said in his email message. "It's painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident."

At the very least, it's got people thinking (again) about online security breaches.