Company admits that more users were actually hacked in 2013

 

 

The Yahoo hack saga continues, this time with more information provided by the company itself, who reckoned in a statement that more users were actually hacked in 2013 than it previously revealed.

 

Yahoo said in September 2016 that 500 million accounts got hacked in 2013 as part of what it described as a state-sponsored attack, albeit absolutely no specifics on the hacking group or the country behind the breach were provided.

 

Yahoo, however, released an updated statement in December to bump the figure to 1 billion, saying that it discovered evidence that twice as many accounts were hacked than it initially thought.

 

3 billion accounts compromised

 

And now the company returns with another statement, revealing that its original investigation actually pointed to a wrong number.

So the hack didn’t affect 500 million or 1 billion accounts, but 3 billion records, which represented the entire userbase of Yahoo at that time.

This means that all Yahoo users in 2013 were exposed following the breach.

 

“Based on an analysis of the information with the assistance of outside forensic experts, Yahoo has determined that all accounts that existed at the time of the August 2013 theft were likely affected,” Yahoo said in the latest statement.

 

“It is important to note that, in connection with Yahoo's December 2016 announcement of the August 2013 theft, Yahoo took action to protect all accounts.

The company required all users who had not changed their passwords since the time of the theft to do so.”

 

The only good thing here is that the breach didn’t expose information like bank accounts, credit card data, or passwords, with hackers managing to compromise accounts using stolen Yahoo source code.

 

If there still are any Yahoo users out there, it goes without saying that they must change their passwords as soon as possible, even though it’s pretty clear that this is an advice coming way too late given the hack happened in 2013.

Judging from its statement, Yahoo believes that it reacted well by “taking action to protect accounts” and confirming the breach 3 years after it happened.

 

 

Source:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/yahoo-all-our-3-billion-users-got-hacked-517899.shtml

That's the way it always goes. The companies report a low number of accounts were compromised and then later up that number considerably.

My account was one of the ones that was hacked.

All of my folders were deleted and scam emails were sent to all of my contacts.

Loved this bit:

 

Yahoo believes that it reacted well by “taking action to protect accounts” and confirming the breach 3 years after it happened.

:big_ha:

I got an email from them today telling me my info was in the data that was stolen. I have never used the Yahoo email account. I created it many moons ago and never used it for anything.

 

When I created the account it was to avoid using my ISP email. I never used it but instead got a Hotmail account. I didn't use my real name, address or anything else so I guess they really didn't get any of my info.

Unfortunately, I didn't fare as well.

I had folders with all of my license keys in them, among other things.

I was able to retrieve everything after it had been deleted.

Yahoo had a hard copy of it and restored everything.

One of the scam emails that was sent, asking for money, on my behalf, was sent to my bank.

The bank had us destroy our debit cards and they sent us new ones.

They also changed all of our accounts to new ones.

We didn't have access to our money for almost two weeks.

I got an email from them today telling me my info was in the data that was stolen. I have never used the Yahoo email account. I created it many moons ago and never used it for anything.

 

When I created the account it was to avoid using my ISP email. I never used it but instead got a Hotmail account. I didn't use my real name, address or anything else so I guess they really didn't get any of my info.

Bank details would be my main concern. Ppl able to contact my bank using my account details. Also other online accounts