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Associated Press

Computer hackers swiped personal information from at least 500 million Yahoo accounts in what is believed to be the biggest digital break-in at an email provider.
The massive security breakdown disclosed Thursday poses new headaches for beleaguered Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer as she scrambles to close a US$4.8 billion sale to Verizon.


The breach dates back to late 2014, raising questions about the checks and balances within Yahoo — a fallen internet star that has been laying off staff and trimming expenses to counter a steep drop in revenue during the past eight years.
At the time of the break-in, Yahoo’s security team was led by Alex Stamos, a respected industry executive who left last year to take a similar job at Facebook.
Yahoo didn’t explain what took so long to uncover a heist that it blamed on a “state-sponsored actor” — parlance for a hacker working on behalf of a foreign government.
It looks increasingly likely that the NSA has been hacked, as experts scrutinise leaked code
The Sunnyvale, California, company declined to explain how it reached its conclusions about the attack for security reasons, but said it is working with the FBI and other law enforcement. Yahoo began investigating a possible breach in July, around the time the tech site Motherboard reported that a hacker who uses the name “Peace” was trying to sell account information belonging to 200 million Yahoo users.
Yahoo didn’t find evidence of that reported hack, but additional digging later uncovered a far larger, allegedly state-sponsored attack.
“We take these types of breaches very seriously and will determine how this occurred and who is responsible,” the FBI said in a Thursday statement.
The Yahoo theft represents the accounts ever stolen from a single email provider, according to computer security analyst Avivah Litan with the technology research firm Gartner Inc.
Russian lawmaker’s son convicted in US of stealing millions of credit card numbers in hacking scheme
“It’s a shocking number,” Litan said. “This is a pretty big deal that is probably going to cost them tens of millions of dollars. Regulators and lawyers are going to have a field day with this one.”
Yahoo says it has more than 1 billion monthly users, although it hasn’t disclosed how many of those people have email accounts. In July, 161 million people worldwide used Yahoo email on personal computers, a 30 per cent decline from the same time in 2014, according to the latest data from the research firm comScore.
The data stolen from Yahoo includes users’ names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, scrambled passwords, and the security questions — and answers — used to verify an accountholder’s identity. The company said the attacker didn’t get any information about its users’ bank accounts or credit and debit cards.
Security experts say the Yahoo theft could hurt the affected users if their personal information is mined to break into other online services or used for identity theft. All affected users will be notified about the theft and advised how to protect themselves, according to the company.
Yahoo also is recommending that all users change their passwords if they haven’t done so since 2014. If the same password is used to access other sites, it should be changed too, along with any security questions similar to those used on Yahoo.
News of the security lapse could cause some people to have second thoughts about relying on Yahoo’s services, raising a prickly issue for the company as it tries to sell its digital operations to Verizon.
That deal, announced two months ago, isn’t supposed to close until early next year. That leaves Verizon with wiggle room to renegotiate the purchase price or even back out if it believes the security breach will harm Yahoo’s business. That could happen if users shun Yahoo or file lawsuits because they’re incensed by the theft of their personal information.
Verizon said it still doesn’t know enough about the Yahoo break-in to assess the potential consequences. “We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities,” the company said in a statement.
At the very least, Verizon is going to need more time to assess what it will be getting into if it proceeds with its plans to take over Yahoo, said Scott Vernick, an attorney specialising in data security for the law firm Fox Rothschild.
“This is going to slow things down. There is going to be a lot of blood, sweat and tears shed on this” Vernick said. “A buyer needs to understand the cybersecurity strengths and weaknesses of its target these days.”


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Computer hackers

Yahoo hack steals personal info from 500 million accounts, in biggest email raid

A man walks past a Yahoo logo during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain in February. Photo: Reuters

FILE - In this June 5, 2014, file photo, people walk in front of a Yahoo sign at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Yahoo says the personal information of 500 million accounts have been stolen in a massive security breakdown that represents the latest setback for the beleaguered internet company. The breach disclosed on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, dates back to late 2014. Yahoo is blaming the hack on a “state-sponsored actor.” (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

A Yahoo logo is pictured in front of a building in Rolle, 30 km (19 miles) east of Geneva, December 12, 2012. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File photo

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A state-sponsored hacker is being blamed for the massive email theft


Yahoo hack steals personal info from 500 million accounts, in biggest email raid

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A state-sponsored hacker is being blamed for the massive email theft

A state-sponsored hacker is being blamed for the massive email theft