Zappos.Com Hack Affects 24 Million Customers

Zappos.com was hacked and this has left 24 million customers vulnerable. Payment data, such as full credit card numbers, are said to not be affected, but other critical personal information may have been.

Zappos.com and 6pm.com - an affiliate of Zappos.com - have sent out e-mails to those affected by this security breach notifying them about it. They are also requiring all customers to create new passwords to help recreate security.

Part of the emails stated, "there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information...including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping address, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts) and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password."

The server containing payment information and full credit card numbers is said to have not been hacked.

All inquiries regarding this incident will be handled via e-mail. Zappos.com has temporarily shut off their phones because they expect to receive a massive amount of calls that they cannot realistically handle.

"If five percent of our customers call, that would be over one million phone calls, most of which would not even make it into out phone system in the first place," said an e-mail that the company sent to employees.

Zappos.com is not the first major company to be hacked. In April 2011, both Sony and Epsilon had security breaches that made customers' information vulnerable.

The Sony attack was regarding a hacker gaining access to customer's personal information on the Qriocity streaming service and PlayStation Network. The PlayStation Network alone has 70 million subscribers.

The Epsilon attack involved over a handful of companies, as this online marketing company manages customer data for some of the largest companies in the United States. This security breach affected the following companies: Best Buy, Citi, US Bank, Walgreens, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase and TiVo.

Anyone who has been affected by the Zappos.com hack, or any hack, should review financial statements, change passwords and place "fraud alerts" with the three major credit bureaus, to be on the safe side.