Phones back on at Zappos after security breach

By Joe Schoenmann

Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 | 11:14 a.m.

Almost a week after Zappos shut down its phone lines in the wake of a computer security breach, the clothing and shoes retailer is taking calls again.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh told the Sun that the phone lines were reopened at 10 a.m. today.

At a news conference this week, Hsieh said that a hacker had accessed the company's internal systems and that the names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses and partial credit card information of up to 24 million customers might have been compromised. Hsieh emphasized that the database containing complete customer credit card information was not accessed in the breach.

Few other details have been released about the attack, which is under investigation by law enforcement.

Following that announcement the company shifted employees from their normal jobs to focus solely on assisting customers. It shut down its phone lines, routing all customer inquiries to email and reseting users' log-in information, forcing them to choose a new password.

Zappos is a fast-growing Internet retailer. Hsieh recently said in a meeting with Gov. Brian Sandoval that during the recession the company has maintained 30 to 40 percent annual growth rate.

In 2013, the company plans to move its headquarters to Las Vegas City Hall, which will have been abandoned as the city bureaucracy moves into a new city hall.