According to the farmers, who number about 35, government has failed to pay them an amount of 1.8 million Ghana cedis as compensation for the destruction of some 63 thousand live birds, which were infected with the deadly avian influenza flu between 2015 and 2016.

[contextly_sidebar id=”BA55ptgagRgfnCZJkBV8sRVzChA5Vc5O”]The visibly frustrated and angry farmers, noted that if steps are not taken to address the issues of compensation payment on schedule, they will be left with no choice than to sell flu infected chickens to the unsuspecting public anytime there is an outbreak.

Addressing the media in Tema, the Team Lead, Lawrence Agorsor, noted that most of them have had to close down their farms, and lay off workers since they are unable to pay their bills.

“Ever since our birds were destroyed for contracting the deadly avian influenza, we have not received a dime from government as compensation, and this is highly affecting us, as our creditors are all over us.”

He said prior to the destruction, authorities had made them sign some documents, and also given them a certificate of destruction, which was to enable them receive some compensation from government, but Mr. Agorsor said not a single farmer has since received any money from government.

He said the then NDC administration under whose tenure the destruction was made, promised to pay them last year November, but nothing was heard until their exit.

He added that, when the affected farmers again followed up at the Ministry of Agriculture earlier this year, they were told by the chief director of the Ministry that their money has been used for a different purpose, as he urged them to wait until another money is released.

Mr. Agorsor said they are being chased all over by their creditors, and they can no longer bare the pressure.

Some of the farmers who spoke to Citi News  noted that, they will have no choice than to keep to themselves any future outbreak, and rather prepare the chicken for the market to be sold to the public.

“We are aware that the avian influenza is deadly, and humans can even contract such diseases if they fail to boil their meat well, but we would be left with no option than to dress affected birds for the market. Instead of reporting and getting our birds destroyed and not receive any compensation, we would rather sell them off to the public” they threatened.

Some of the farmers said “we have laid off all our workers and have resorted to family and friends to help us start all over again. Christmas is almost here, and this is our bumper season, yet we have no money to buy boilers to bounce back.”

They called on government to as a matter of urgency, come to their aid to relieve them of their suffering.

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By: Elvis Washington/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Three US states are also investigating the theft of names, email addresses and other personal data, which affected up to 145 million eBay customers.

The online marketplace has begun the process of notifying its customers about the need to reset passwords.

However some customers reported problems when attempting to do so.

EBay told the BBC that it was not aware of any technical problems with the password reset function on the site.

“The site is busy, but our secure password reset tool is working,” a spokesman said.

The firm has been criticised for its slow reaction in informing customers about the theft of personal data.

“We are sending out millions of emails, and it will take some time. The process is certainly well under way,” the firm told the BBC.

It warned though that its official password reset email contained no links and that customers should be wary of messages that did.

“Any email with links is a phishing attempt,” it said.

Serious breach

Meanwhile the fallout from the data breach was beginning to kick in.

In the US, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois said they were conducting a joint investigation.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 live, the UK’s information commissioner said that the eBay breach was “very serious” but that outdated and complex data protection laws meant the ICO could not begin an immediate investigation.

He said the watchdog would have to first liaise with the Luxembourg data protection, where eBay has its European headquarters.

“There’s millions of UK citizens affected by this, and we’ve been clear that we’re monitoring it, but by taking the wrong action under the law now we risk invalidating any investigation,” an ICO spokesman told the BBC when pressed on why the watchdog had not yet launched any action.

Identity theft

Questions are starting to be asked about how well eBay safeguarded its customers’ data.

Hugh Boyes from the Institution of Engineering and Technology questioned why eBay stored so much data in the first place.

“The Information Commissioner makes the point that organisations should keep the minimum information necessary so why do eBay need to hold and store dates of birth and addresses?”

“As an occasional eBay user, I am concerned that not only have they lost my email, username and password, but according to their website the loss includes home address, phone number and date of birth.

“This is serious from an identity theft perspective. The only item they are missing is the mother’s maiden name and they have sufficient information to impersonate an individual when dealing with many financial organisations.”

Reports that large numbers of eBay customer details have begun appearing for sale in Pastebin – a site where hackers publicise their attacks – have been denied by eBay.

Lysa Myers, a security research at ESET agreed that the data was unlikely to have originated from the auction site.

“The users that are shown in the sample would represent an odd subset of users for an international company like eBay. And the price asked (1.45 Bitcoin) would seem to be astonishingly low for the data of 145 million users,” she said.

“Even if the sample is not in fact from the eBay breach, it could potentially be data from another company’s leak.”

Source: BBC

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The US firm said a database had been hacked between late February and early March, and had contained encrypted passwords and other non-financial data.

The company added that it had no evidence of there being unauthorised activity on its members’ accounts.

However, it said that changing the passwords was “best practice and will help enhance security for eBay users”.

The California-based company has 128 million active users and accounted for $212bn (£126bn) worth of commerce on its various marketplaces and other services in 2013.

It said it would be contacting users to alert them of the issue via email, its website, adverts and social media.

A spokesman added that the firm’s engineers were in the process of rolling out a feature that would oblige members to choose new passwords when they next logged in, which should be live in each of the countries eBay operated in by the end of the day.

Stolen credentials

A post on eBay’s corporate site said that cyber-attackers accessed the information after obtaining “a small number of employee log-in credentials”, allowing them to access its systems – something it only became aware of a fortnight ago.

“The database… included eBay customers’ name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth,” it said.

“However, the database did not contain financial information or other confidential personal information.

“Extensive forensics subsequently identified the compromised eBay database, resulting in the company’s announcement today.”

Although the firm also owns the PayPal money transfer service, it said that the division’s data was stored separately, encrypted and that there was no evidence that it had been accessed.

It added that any members who used the same login details used on eBay for other sites should also update them.

EBay has not provided any information about the kind of encryption it used.

One expert said there was still a concern that the hackers might be able to make use of their haul.

“We all know that given enough time hackers can crack some encrypted password files,” said Alan Woodward, an independent security consultant.

“The slightly worrying aspect of this is that the hackers have a nice neat list of personal information, which can be used to steal identities or even help them get around other systems though password reset scams.”

Source: BBC

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