Yahoo Confirms A Half Billion Affected By 2014 Cyber Attack

Yahoo on Thursday said that state-sponsored hackers stole data from at least 500 million accounts in late 2014.

Yahoo says the information gathered from these compromised accounts includes names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birthdates, hashed passwords, and in some cases encrypted or unencrypted security answers.

Yahoo confirmed Thursday that it was struck with a data breach in 2014 that resulted in user account information being stolen from the company’s network. But in investigating the security of its systems, the company discovered that there was another breach, by what it believes was a state-sponsored actor, that dated back to 2014.

He said it was too early to say what impact the breach might have on Yahoo and its users because many questions remain, including the identity of the state-sponsored hackers behind it.

Yahoo is now notifying potentially affected users, and has taken steps to secure their accounts, including resetting passwords, and invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers.

Any unencrypted security questions and answers will be invalidated, meaning that users will have to submit new ones.

However, the search engine company clarified that the stolen information did not include users’ credit card or bank account details.

Yahoo has published an FAQ for affected users. The company is in the process of notifying users who were possibly affected.

A year later, Snowden’s documents also revealed that UK’s GCHQ intelligence agency was spying on the webcams of millions of Yahoo Messenger users.

They are also asked to monitor their accounts for any signs of suspect activity.

Verizon said in July it would buy Yahoo’s core internet properties for $4.83 billion.

Those with Yahoo accounts who are in need of further information can visit the Yahoo Security Issue FAQs page.

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Yahoo said it was working “closely with law enforcement” over the breach. Christina Morin, from Cathedral City said, “If i get an alert that someone tried to hack my account, then I’ll change it”.