Yahoo sets hack record at 1 billion accounts
It seems Yahoo has outdone itself.
The company said Wednesday that it was hit by yet another hacking attack, this time affecting more than 1 billion user accounts. That's double the number affected by a hack revealed in September.
The hack occurred in August 2013. Stolen data included users' names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and encrypted passwords. Those passwords are scrambled up with an encryption tool called MD5, which experts say is possible to crack with some patience. The data also included some security questions and answers, some of which weren't encrypted.
"Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts, including requiring users to change their passwords," the company said in a statement. "Yahoo has also invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account."
Among the victims are more than 150,000 US government and military employees, presenting a threat to national security, according to a Bloomberg report. The accounts belong to current and former White House staff, congressmen and their aides, FBI agents, officials at the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and each branch of the US military.
For the full article, please go to:
https://www.cnet.com/news/yahoo-hack-1-billion-users-affected-2013-record/
