On Tuesday, Yahoo confirmed that all 3 billion of its accounts were affected in a 2013 data theft. Last year, the company confirmed that its 1 billion accounts were compromised in 2013. With recent revelation, this theft has tripled the estimation. So, this theft has become one of the largest in the history of Internet companies.
Hackers accessed names, birth dates, phone numbers, encrypted passwords, security questions and backup email addresses. Even if passwords were encrypted, they were easy to crack. The stolen information did not include payment card data or bank information.
With the stolen information, it is easy to access any Yahoo account. If you are still a Yahoo user, you must be worried.
Yahoo official also claimed that the 3 billion figure includes multiple accounts by same person and accounts that were never briefly used. With this claim, the company wants to show that the actual affected users are less than 3 billion. But the number is still too big.
It is worth to mention that Yahoo confirmed another attack occurred in 2014 that affected 500 million accounts.
Yahoo sold itself to Verizon for $4.48 billion in June last year but the deal was negotiated after the disclosure of the breaches and $350 million was cut from Verizon’s original offer. Verizon combined the Yahoo with AOL that it bought in 2015. BY combining Yahoo and AOL, it formed a new telecommunications company called Oath.
Now it is very surprising why Yahoo didn’t disclose the full extent of the 2013 incident before Verizon when the company was willing to acquire it.
The new revelation follows months of investigation by Yahoo, Verizon, cybersecurity firms and law enforcement. And they came up with a report that was not expected by us.
If you are still actively using Yahoo account, you must change the password along with password recovery information. You can also think of switching to other services because Yahoo is not serious about your security at all.
