Inspector Rian Visser is to meet with senior SA Police Service (SAPS) officers tomorrow morning, to clarify issues surrounding the statement made by his Web site, www.419legal.org, which suggested that online auction site eBay`s credit card database had been hacked.
Yesterday it was reported that the credit card details of South Africans who had used eBay`s services could potentially have been compromised by hackers from a 419 scam syndicate. The reports quoted a notice on Visser`s local anti-419 scam Web site.
An eBay spokesman denied the organisation had been hacked and denied it was working with SAPS on any investigation relating to such a charge.
According to the 419Legal site, Visser is an inspector in the Johannesburg Commercial Branch of the SAPS and began the site - at his own cost - in March, prior to it being declared an official service of the SAPS.
There has been some debate about the validity of the claims and the 419Legal site itself, with critics saying it was strange that it called on users to enter their credit card details on an initially insecure site. Visser`s site claimed to have a stolen credit card database which users could search in order to check whether their card is on the "compromised eBay" list.
Accusing media such as ITWeb of a "smear campaign" against Visser, at least one supporter of the site still maintains that eBay was indeed hacked.
All Visser would say when contacted today was that he was meeting with senior officials in the SAPS tomorrow morning and that further comment would be made once that meeting had been concluded.
The 419Legal stolen credit card database is currently listed as being temporarily offline for maintenance, with a message on the site urging people who fear their credit card details might be on this list to contact their credit card companies for verification.
The site has also removed the SAPS badge that was prominently displayed on its home page yesterday.
Related story:
eBay denies hack report
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