The comments come after a report earlier this year quoted a security researcher saying some 200 million accounts may have been accessed and that hacked data was being offered for sale online.
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Yahoo has confirmed a 2014 user data breach was far larger than originally thought, with 500 million accounts and customer details stolen.
The stolen information includes names, email addresses telephone numbers, dates of birth, protected passwords and encrypted and unencrypted security questions and answers. Yahoo has started sending out notifications to users, and you should be receiving one at that account if you were affected by the data breach.
In addition to changing your account password, you should also change your security questions and review your account for any suspicious activity.
Yahoo did not say where the affected users are located around the world, and it’s unclear which Yahoo properties were breached.
Yahoo said there is no evidence the responsible party still had access to its network or internal services. As a matter of fact, if these statements are true, this would be the biggest data breach of all time. The same person is linked to previous hacks of LinkedIn and MySpace. “The problem is not that [people] need to be concerned about their Yahoo account – its all the other accounts they use”. That leaves Verizon with wiggle room to renegotiate the purchase price or even back out if it believes the security breach will harm Yahoo’s business.
Yahoo who in Australia partner with the Seven Network, has admitted to a hack in 2014 that left data of 500 million users exposed.
The company first found out about the breach in July 2016, said a source familiar with the situation, who declined to be identified because the investigation is ongoing. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests”, the company said.
If you frequently use the same security questions and answers for other online accounts, you’ll want to change those, as well.
Yahoo has 1 billion users around the globe.
Verizon on Thursday said it was notified of Yahoo’s security incident within the last two days but has “limited information and understanding of the impact …”
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There are a number of steps people can take to protect themselves from hackers, like changing their email passwords often and having separate passwords for every account.
