Yahoo has compromised a billion accounts
Yahoo has compromised a billion accounts. Yes,
Yahoo Inc warned on Wednesday that it had uncovered yet another massive cyber attack, saying data from more than 1 billion user accounts was compromised in August 2013, making it the largest breach in history.
All our passwords, tax information and anything else that one stores in their email account has been taken over by hackers. What a mammoth shame. And companies that we trust with Financial information here in India paytm free charge may not even have 10% of the security infrastructure that yahoo has. Shame on this american company. What a failure.
The number of affected accounts was double the number implicated in a 2014 breach that the internet company disclosed in September and blamed on hackers working on behalf of a government. News of that attack, which affected at least 500 million accounts, prompted Verizon Communication Inc to say in October that it might withdraw from an agreement to buy Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.83 billion.
Following the latest disclosure, Verizon said, “we will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions.” A Yahoo spokesman told Reuters that the company has been in communication with Verizon during its investigation into the breach and that it is confident the incident will not affect the pending acquisition.
Yahoo required all of its customers to reset their passwords – a stronger measure than it took after the previous breach was discovered, when it only recommended a password reset. Yahoo also said Wednesday that it believes hackers responsible for the previous breach had also accessed the company’s proprietary code to learn how to forge “cookies” that would allow hackers to access an account without a password. “Yahoo badly screwed up,” said Bruce Schneier, a cryptologist and one of the world’s most respected security experts. “They weren’t taking security seriously and that’s now very clear. I would have trouble trusting Yahoo going forward.”
Yahoo was tentative in its description of new problems, saying the incident was “likely” distinct from the one it reported in September and that stolen information “may have included” names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. It said it had not yet identified the intrusion that led to the massive data theft and noted that payment-card data and bank account information were not stored in the system the company believes was affected.
Yahoo said it discovered the breach while reviewing data provided to the company by law enforcement. FireEye Inc’s Mandiant unit and Aon Plc’s Stroz Friedberg are assisting in the investigation, the Yahoo spokesman told Reuters. The breach is the latest setback for Yahoo, an internet pioneer that has fallen on hard times in recent years after being eclipsed by younger, fast-growing rivals including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc.
Hours before it announced the breach on Wednesday, executives with Google, Facebook and other large U.S. technology companies met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York. Reflecting its diminished stature, Yahoo was not invited to the summit, according to people familiar with the meeting. The Yahoo spokesman said Chief Executive Marissa Mayer was at the company’s Sunnyvale, California headquarters to assist in addressing the new breach. more
Yahoo Inc warned on Wednesday that it had uncovered yet another massive cyber attack, saying data from more than 1 billion user accounts was compromised in August 2013, making it the largest breach in history.
All our passwords, tax information and anything else that one stores in their email account has been taken over by hackers. What a mammoth shame. And companies that we trust with Financial information here in India paytm free charge may not even have 10% of the security infrastructure that yahoo has. Shame on this american company. What a failure.
The number of affected accounts was double the number implicated in a 2014 breach that the internet company disclosed in September and blamed on hackers working on behalf of a government. News of that attack, which affected at least 500 million accounts, prompted Verizon Communication Inc to say in October that it might withdraw from an agreement to buy Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.83 billion.
Following the latest disclosure, Verizon said, “we will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions.” A Yahoo spokesman told Reuters that the company has been in communication with Verizon during its investigation into the breach and that it is confident the incident will not affect the pending acquisition.
Yahoo required all of its customers to reset their passwords – a stronger measure than it took after the previous breach was discovered, when it only recommended a password reset. Yahoo also said Wednesday that it believes hackers responsible for the previous breach had also accessed the company’s proprietary code to learn how to forge “cookies” that would allow hackers to access an account without a password. “Yahoo badly screwed up,” said Bruce Schneier, a cryptologist and one of the world’s most respected security experts. “They weren’t taking security seriously and that’s now very clear. I would have trouble trusting Yahoo going forward.”
Yahoo was tentative in its description of new problems, saying the incident was “likely” distinct from the one it reported in September and that stolen information “may have included” names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. It said it had not yet identified the intrusion that led to the massive data theft and noted that payment-card data and bank account information were not stored in the system the company believes was affected.
Yahoo said it discovered the breach while reviewing data provided to the company by law enforcement. FireEye Inc’s Mandiant unit and Aon Plc’s Stroz Friedberg are assisting in the investigation, the Yahoo spokesman told Reuters. The breach is the latest setback for Yahoo, an internet pioneer that has fallen on hard times in recent years after being eclipsed by younger, fast-growing rivals including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc.
Hours before it announced the breach on Wednesday, executives with Google, Facebook and other large U.S. technology companies met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York. Reflecting its diminished stature, Yahoo was not invited to the summit, according to people familiar with the meeting. The Yahoo spokesman said Chief Executive Marissa Mayer was at the company’s Sunnyvale, California headquarters to assist in addressing the new breach. more
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It is a problem world over and we are tom-toming of digitisation. With digitisation, all our activities/spending activities are tracked which can be manipulated and used for marketing purposes. It is like all of us being put under surveillance. Remember Snowden! more
Dec 21
The world can not be free from Day followed by Night,so also,we will have good boys and bad boys,that is just a fact.We are in kaliyug. WE need satya Yug,to have a peaceful life.In the absence of this situation,,some of us will keep continuing their brain activities in developing viruses(Software programming ), Its a basically Fight between Good and Evil,and,it will continue endlessly.We need to learn to stay in these enviornment,and,enjoy.there is no other go.That much risk we need to take. more
Dec 16
चलिये यह अमेरिकन कंपनी है - अक्सर हम फक्र करते हुये कहते/सुनते है की हमारे देश के टेलेंट से साफ्टवेयर चल रहा है फिर भी याहू /जीमेल /हातमेल की तरह का कुछ भी हम क्यूँ नहीं बना सके और विकसित कर सके ? क्यूँ आज भी हम हम आश्रित है विदेशी ताकतों के ?यहाँ तक की बैंक का भी सारा सिस्टम अभी भी विदेशी तकनीक पर टीका है - क्यूँ ?और बातें हम cashless की करते है ? more
Dec 16
Yahoo has come out and told what has happened and has also assured users of improved protection. Now,take the case of State Bank of India,a lot many accounts of 'SBI Card' holders were looted and yet they have not regretted and given some assurance to the customers that such hacking won't happen. more
Dec 15
