New hacking warning from Yahoo

london — Yahoo is warning users of potentially malicious activity on their accounts between 2015 and 2016, the latest development in the internet company’s investigation of a megabreach that exposed one billion users’ data several years ago.

Yahoo confirmed that it was notifying users that their accounts had potentially been compromised but declined to say how many people were affected.

In a statement, Yahoo tied some of the potential compromises to what it has described as the “statesponsored actor” responsible for the theft of private data from more than one billion user accounts in 2013 and 2014.

The catastrophic breach raised questions about Yahoo’s security and destabilised the company’s deal to sell its e-mail service, websites and mobile applications to Verizon Communications.

The malicious activity that was the subject of the user warnings revolved around the use of “forged cookies” — strings of data which are used across the web and can sometimes allow people to access online accounts without re-entering their passwords.

A warning message sent to Yahoo users read: “Based on the ongoing investigation, we believe a forged cookie may have been used in 2015 or 2016 to access your account.” Some users posted the ones they received to Twitter. —