Yahoo confirms MASSIVE data breach of half billion accounts

Internet company Yahoo have confirmed reports that a staggering half a billion (!) user accounts have been breached, and user information including usernames and passwords has been stolen.

And for those wondering, yes, 500 million compromised accounts tops the list of the biggest Internet breaches of all time.

The breach actually occurred back in 2014, though has only been detected recently after an online hacker was reportedly seen trying to sell 200 million stolen account details.

Initial reports surfaced this week of a possible breach, though Yahoo conceded on Thursday that the intrusion was far bigger than they had first thought. As it turned out, it’s the largest publicly disclosed breach in cyber history.

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Yahoo have assigned the blame to “state-sponsored actors”, though have not released who they believe to be responsible.

The advice for Yahoo users is simple – change your password if you haven’t done so since 2014. And if you used the same password for any other online accounts, change that password too.

User information that has been compromised includes usernames, passwords, emails and date of birth. However, Yahoo has said that no credit or debit card information was stolen.

The breach is now the largest one in cyber history, topping the previous record holder that previously belonged to MySpace when 359 million accounts had been compromised.

Yahoo said in the statement –

Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts.
These steps include invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account and asking potentially affected users to change their passwords.

To reiterate – if you haven’t changed your Yahoo password since 2014, do it now!