Bibliofind.com—a subsidiary of Amazon.com that specializes in matching buyers and sellers of rare and hard-to-find books—discovered last week that an intruder had penetrated its network in October 2000 and had been accessing its network ever since. As a result of the break-in, the intruder stole 98,000 customer records, subsequently forcing the service to take its Web site offline last Friday. Over the weekend, Bibliofind.com removed the electronic purchasing capability from its Web site before returning the site to public service on Monday. No word was available as to when the company would put its electronic purchasing capability back online.
Bibliofind.com said that the FBI is investigating the matter, but didn't comment on any possible suspects. The company said that it is sending email notices to all 98,000 affected customers, letting them know that someone has stolen their account information. An Amazon.com spokesperson said that the intrusion didn't affect Amazon customers in any way because the two e-commerce sites run on different platforms. Bibliofind.com said that, to date, no one has reported any abuse of the stolen information.
