This have been cited by U.S. search engine giant on Thursday.
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In what may be the largest-ever cyber breach, Yahoo on Thursday confirmed that hackers stole information from at least 500 million user accounts. “Yahoo is working closely with law enforcement on this matter”.
“500 million accounts is huge by any standards, we sometimes get a little blasé as the numbers get higher but let’s not make any mistakes here, that’s a lot of customers’ information stolen here”, he said.
Yahoo says account information stolen may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, passwords and identity defying questions and answers. They also say that they think unprotected passwords, payment card data and bank account information hasn’t been affected, which will come as a relief to many. Yahoo is encouraging users to change their passwords as a result of the breach.
Yahoo has no evidence the stolen bcrypt-protected passwords or security questions and answers were used to gain unauthorised access to Spark accounts.
The company said it believes a “state-sponsored actor” was behind the data breach, meaning an individual acting on behalf of a government.
In 2014 Yahoo was hacked, although the hack is only just now being made public.
Yahoo also said in the statement: “Additionally, please consider using Yahoo Account Key, a simple authentication tool that eliminates the need to use a password altogether”.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo believes that the 2014 massive security breach has carried on by a “state-sponsored actor”.
Look at your account for any signs of suspicious activity.
A massive data leak from Yahoo that came to light Thursday may have been instigated by state-sponsored hackers, and the FBI started investigating the matter on the same day.
Change your password: While this hack took place in 2014, it’s important that all users take the time to update their security information. If you have been affected by the hack, you can learn a bit more from the company itself here. If an email you receive about this issue prompts you to click on a link, download an attachment, or asks you for information, the email was not sent by Yahoo and may be an attempt to steal your personal information.
The data breach poses new headaches for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer as she tries to close a .8bn sale to Verizon Communication.
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Yahoo reaches some one billion users around the world.
