The online-shoe store Zappos, which is owned by Amazon, is asking customers to create new passwords on their account after the website was hacked late Sunday night. Customers were informed of the cyber attack via email, where they were informed: "that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com."

According to CNNMoney.com, more than 24 million customers may have had their personal information accessed, including names, e-mails, billing addresses, personal addresses, and phone numbers. The company said passwords were also hacked, but Zappos insisted those were encoded, and that the hackers had no actual access to the full passwords.

Customers passwords were reset, and a large green button on the upper right-hand side of the website asked customers to "create a new password."

The better news, according to the email: "The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed." Hackers had access to partial credit card numbers - the last four digits- but not the entire number.

In a letter to employees that was posted onto its website, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh addressed the cyber attack. " We've spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers. It's painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident," he wrote. "I suppose the one saving grace is that the database that stores our customers' critical credit card and other payment data was not affected or accessed. "

The hack also affected Zappos' online discount store 6pm.com. Passwords on that website were reset as well.

The company has set up a website, http://www.zappos.com/passwordchange, to answer questions and to provide update information to customers.