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500 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked in 2014

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A

Armadilo

Banned
Article

Yahoo confirmed Thursday that a massive security breach impacted 500 million users, and said it believes a "state-sponsored actor" is behind the hack, which took place in 2014.
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"Based on the ongoing investigation, Yahoo believes that information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen and the investigation has found no evidence that the state-sponsored actor is currently in Yahoo's network. Yahoo is working closely with law enforcement on this matter," said Bob Lord, Yahoo's chief information security officer, in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
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The stolen account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and in some cases, according to Lord, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.
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The company is urging users to change their Yahoo password, and also to update their password and security questions if the same ones were used on any other accounts.
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The hack first came to light last month. At the time, a company spokesman neither confirmed nor denied the alleged hack, telling NBC News in a statement, "We are aware of a claim. We are committed to protecting the security of our users' information and we take any such claim very seriously."
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It was announced in July Verizon had reached an agreement to purchase Yahoo for $4.83 billion. The deal is still in process.

A Verizon spokesman told NBC News the company was notified of the incident "within the last two days."

"We understand that Yahoo is conducting an active investigation of this matter, but we otherwise have limited information and understanding of the impact," the spokesman said. "We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities. Until then, we are not in position to further comment."
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N

nadozza

Member
The company should not be urging users to update passwords, they should be forcing password changes at this point.
 
A

Armadilo

Banned
People don't use yahoo that often anymore but back in 2014, I think it was popular enough that people used it back then
 
F

foppy79

Member
This isn't the first time this has happened to yahoo, no?

Either way taking 2 years to realize you were hacked is pretty bad.
 
S

SuperBanana

Banned
Kind of terrifying these huge breaches are done by governments these days. Almost wish it woukd go back to kids doing it for a laugh.
 
S

SourBear

Banned
It was announced in July Verizon had reached an agreement to purchase Yahoo for $4.83 billion. The deal is still in process.

A Verizon spokesman told NBC News the company was notified of the incident "within the last two days."
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So the breach happened back in 2014 and we are just hearing about this now? My bet is Yahoo was covering it up, got discovered during due diligence triggered by the Verizon purchase, and Verizon is forcing Yahoo to disclose the news.

Fuck Yahoo.
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
$4.8 billion... hmmm.

How much did MS offer to buy Yahoo for a couple of years ago for again?

EDIT: Oh god! $44.6 billion?!!
MS won!
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
Not forcing password changes is one thing but surely there are some guidelines or even regulations about not even publicly addressing this for two years right?
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
Should force password resets after things like this. And having the password hashed, but unencrypted security questions... How?

hipbabboom said:
$4.8 billion... hmmm.

How much did MS offer to buy Yahoo for a couple of years ago for again?

EDIT: Oh god! $44.6 billion?!!
MS won!
Click to expand...
To be fair, this buyout does not include their stake in Alibaba which is the majority if Yahoo's worth at the moment.
 
C

Capella

Member
kgtrep said:
Does anyone know if this is the largest breach (in terms of number of accounts) that has occurred?
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I think so as it's larger than the Myspace hack.

KarmaCow said:
Not forcing password changes is one thing but surely there are some guidelines or even regulations about not even publicly addressing this for two years right?
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Article says they found out about it last month but the statement they are quoting was related to a sale of data from 2012 which was never confirmed to real. Looks like they found something much worse when they looked into it...
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
Oh so now the new tactic is to blame "state-sponsored actors" when you get hacked this bad?

Good thing I haven't used Yahoo since like 2001 or something.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
this also affect flickr? I honestly can't remember my yahoo account details. Little point changing them but I think my important accounts are all unique and 2FA where possible

edit: Seems I had 2FA on yahoo.com already - needed a text message confirmation code when I logged in. Changed password anyway just in case
 
B

Beefy

Member
Verizon seem pissed!

Also as I said on the other thread. I hope Sky Yahoo accounts haven't been hacked.
 
J

jorma

is now taking requests
SuperBanana said:
Kind of terrifying these huge breaches are done by governments these days. Almost wish it woukd go back to kids doing it for a laugh.
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There is literally nothing that indicates it was "state sponsored" beyond yahoos "belief", and that belief is likely grounded in the idea that people won't shit on Yahoo as much if there's a "foreign government" to blame. But that's just what i think of course.
 
B

Baron von Loathsome

Member
I was forced to change my main account's password when Verizon switched from Yahoo to AOL.

I'll change other one, though.

EDIT: It looks like I changed that one back in May, so I'm good.

Nonetheless, waiting so long to tell the users is not a cool move.
 
V

Visualante2

Member
Soon there will be a gap in the market for a memorable question manager. Ensuring you use unique answers to every memorable question.
 
U

Unknown Soldier

Member
jorma said:
There is literally nothing that indicates it was "state sponsored" beyond yahoos "belief", and that belief is likely grounded in the idea that people won't shit on Yahoo as much if there's a "foreign government" to blame. But that's just what i think of course.
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Yeah, the excuse is bullshit. Yahoo must think we are all stupid and that a "state-sponsored actor" would be selling the hacked info for $2000 on the darkweb. They were probably hacked by a 13-year old Russian kid and they're trying to cover up how bad their security was right now.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
I wonder how many of these are JP accounts. For whatever reason yahoo is the go to web search here in Japan. So I'd wager a lot of the existing yahoo accounts are JP ones since I've never seen anyone outside of Japan use yahoo.
 
F

FunkyDealer

Banned
GAMEPROFF said:
I am sorry for all 50 persons with an active account
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JqYTmjn.gif


Thankfully I've probably changed my password twice since then, and enabled two-step verification. But what the fuck Yahoo!?
 
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