‘Biggest hack ever’
LOS ANGELES: Yahoo Inc said yesterday that at least 500 million of its accounts were hacked in 2014 by what it believed was a state-sponsored actor, a theft that appeared to be the world’s biggest known cyber breach by far.
Cyber thieves might have stolen names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth and encrypted passwords, the company said. But unprotected passwords, payment card data and bank account information did not appear to have been compromised.
The attack was unprecedented in size, and it comes at a difficult time for Yahoo. Chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer, is under pressure to shore up the flagging fortunes of the site founded in 1994, and the company in July agreed to a $4.83 billion (R65bn) cash sale of its internet business to Verizon Communications Inc.
On its website yesterday, Yahoo encouraged users to change their passwords. Yahoo only discovered the incursion after August reports of a separate breach.
While that report turned out to be false, Yahoo’s investigation turned up the 2014 theft, according to a person familiar with the matter. – Reuters