Internet hackers are so successful at penetrating company IT systems these days that, for the most part, breaches go without comment. But few have been quite as startling as the one declared this week by eBay, the online auction website.

The company announced that in a breach of its database between late February and early March, hackers obtained several of its employees’ login credentials. This gave the hackers access to the names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and passwords of its 128m active users.

The company said it had only become aware of the intrusion two weeks ago. As a result, it is now asking its active users to reset their passwords – aiming to rectify what is probably one of the biggest data breaches in the history of the internet.