|
| FILE - This Tuesday, July 19, 2016 photo shows a Yahoo sign at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. On Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016, Yahoo said it believes hackers stole data from more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. |
NEW YORK
(AP) -- Yahoo says it believes hackers stole data from more than one
billion user accounts in August 2013, in what is thought to be the
largest data breach at an email provider.
The Sunnyvale, California, company was also home to what's now most likely the second largest hack in history, one that exposed 500 million Yahoo accounts . The company disclosed that breach in September. Yahoo said it hasn't identified the intrusion associated with this theft.
Yahoo
says the information stolen may include names, email addresses, phone
numbers, birthdates and security questions and answers. The company says
it believes bank-account information and payment-card data were not
affected.
But the company said hackers may
have also stolen passwords from the affected accounts. Technically,
those passwords should be secure; Yahoo said they were scrambled twice -
once by encryption and once by another technique called hashing. But
hackers have become adept at cracking secured passwords by assembling
huge dictionaries of similarly scrambled phrases and matching them
against stolen password databases.
That could mean trouble for any users who reused their Yahoo password for other online accounts.
QUESTIONS FOR VERIZON
The
new hack revelation raises fresh questions about Verizon's $4.8 billion
proposed acquisition of Yahoo, and whether the big mobile carrier will
seek to modify or abandon its bid. If the hacks cause a user backlash
against Yahoo, the company's services wouldn't be as valuable to
Verizon. The telecom giant wants Yahoo and its many users to help it
build a digital ad business.
In a statement,
Verizon said that it will evaluate the situation as Yahoo investigates
and will review the "new development before reaching any final
conclusions." Spokesman Bob Varettoni declined to answer further
questions.
Yahoo said Wednesday that it is
requiring users to change their passwords and invalidating security
questions so they can't be used to hack into accounts.
