22/05/2014 World Business Report

Those are the latest headlines from BBC World News. Now for the latest

financial news with Sally Bundock and World Business Report.

Hacked. EBay reveals it's become the latest victim of a surge in cyber

crime ` in one of the biggest ever thefts of personal data. Rock`bottom

rates are here to stay, for now. The Fed hints it's in no rush to raise

the cost of borrowing ` boosting global markets.

Welcome to World Business Report. I'm Sally Bundock ` also in the

programme there are signs that moves by the Chinese government to counter

a slowdown in the world's second biggest economy are working. But

first.... If you are a user of eBay you'll shortly be getting a message

` or may already have received one ` telling you to reset your password.

On Wednesday the site revealed it has become the latest big

corporation to fall victim to cyber attack. EBay says hackers got into a

database containing customers' passwords ` as well as personal

information like addresses and phone numbers. EBay won't say how many

people are affected, but it has some 145 million registered users who buy

and sell on the site. It says there's "no evidence" its electronic

payment service PayPal was hacked ` since its data including credit card

details is stored separately. EBay is far from alone. According to

security firm Symantec ` the number of computer security breaches around

the world jumped 62% last year Technology journalist Rupert

Goodwins is with me now. Names, addresses, telephone numbers of

millions in the hands of hackers. How worried should we be? You should

certainly change your password if you are an eBay user and you should

change it as well on other sites if you have used the same one. The most

private information they seem to have got is birth dates, which is

not very private anyway these days. You should be aware that people

might try to contact you saying they are from eBay and asking for

details. A company like this, you would expect, would have very good

security, are you surprised that this has happened or are hackers

becoming more clever and difficult to predict? Like any company, it has

a compromise to make. If you have a problem with it, you call up and

expect that they will have the information so it must be available

within the company. As soon as someone gets through the first line

of the fence and the company, it is easy to access that information.

There is no sign that the hackers have been able to read the password

files. In general, public information like this is not capped

to as high of a standard as more detailed financial information. This

is the sort of reach we will see a lot of. In the past year there have

been 800 million cases of incorrect information being lost. We will have

to get used to it. Obviously we can do a lot as individuals to row text

ourselves. What can be done to try to prevent this? Security has to

become tighter and tighter but at the end of the day, hackers will

find a way? Not always, but quite often. It sounds as if they had

caught employee information and logged in with it. You can always

assume that it will be access possible. Information is no good

unless you can read it, so there is a compromise to be made. How

damaging is this for eBay? It will be embarrassing but it is not the

largest hack of its kind. It will survive perfectly well. Thank you.

You heard the advice, change your password quickly. Markets have been

getting a boost from hopes that getting a boost from hopes that US

interest rates could be staying at their rock`bottom levels for some

time to come. Minutes time to come. Minutes from the April

meeting of the US Federal Reserve showed policymakers discussed

raising the cost of borrowing ` which has been close to zero since

2008 ` but have set no timetable for doing so. Samira Hussain in New York

explains. This gives an indication of what the people, the

policymakers, are thinking and what goes behind some of the actions. In

their last statements, we did not hear anything new, it was all

reduction of asset purchases and the retention of interest rates near

zero. But what we were really interested in was the thinking in

terms of when, in fact, we may see interest rates start to make their

climb. We see that the Federal Reserve officials have begun these

discussions but they were very clear and careful to make sure that people

understood that just because they are beginning discussions about

interest rates, it does not mean that there will be a rise in the

imminent future. Asian markets have had a further boost from better than

expected news about the Chinese economy. Let's get the details from

Rico Hizon in Singapore. Tell us more about China. I understand that

the manufacturing sector has been doing rather well. That is right. It

has given a big sigh of relief for Asian investors who were awaiting

these results. It is better than expected data. It is the best

performance in five months. It gained 49 points seven percentage

points in May. The number indicates that manufacturing did shrink

overall because anything over 50 is a game and anything below is a pro

traction `` gain. This suggests that the targeted measures of the

government announced last quarter, one of which was spending on the

public sector, is starting to have an impact. Chinese shares are rising

together with South Korea and Australia. A good day for Asian

markets. We like to hear that. Thank you. The increasingly fraught

relations between Russia and the West are in the spotlight today. In

the city of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin is due to address the public

tomorrow. Now we go to our correspondant. Welcome to our

coverage of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Last

year, the German chancellor was addressing the world at a much

better time in which Europe was pretty happy about the huge trading

goods and services that many of its companies had and the fact that

Russia was supplying up to 20% of the continent's gas. Now, business

leaders are choosing to stay away to express their views about the

annexation of Crimea by Russia and its ambitions in eastern Ukraine.

Other business leaders from Europe will be here, but they will be

avoiding the limelight and not giving any interviews. They do not

want to upset the country from which they derive a lot of earnings. The

promise of sanctions being stepped up into a third phase if there are

any more problems in the Crimea are always on the horizon but the

reality is that the capital flight out of Russia has been far more

serious than the sanctions have been. 200 billion euros has been

taken out of the country it is estimated. That is the biggest worry

for businesses caught in the crossfire. Look at these markets.

Let's have a look at how the US closed. That is all from us today.

We will review the papers in a few minutes. Hello again. Voting starts

seven o'clock this morning in elections to the