Yahoo Repeatedly Didn't Invest In Security, Rejected Bare Minimum Measure To Reset All User Passwords: NYTimes

If it wasn't already enough that the mega breach at Yahoo affects over 500 million users, a new investigative report on The New York Times states the extent to which Yahoo didn't care about its users' security (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The report says Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer refused to fund security initiatives at the company, and instead invested money in features and new products. Despite Edward Snowden warning Yahoo that it was too easy of a target for hackers, the company took one year to hire a new chief information officer. The company hired Alex Stamos, who is widely respected in the industry. But Stamos soon left partly due to clashes with Mayer, The Times adds. And it gets worse. From the report:But when it came time to commit meaningful dollars to improve Yahoo's security infrastructure, Ms. Mayer repeatedly clashed with Mr. Stamos, according to the current and former employees. She denied Yahoo's security team financial resources and put off proactive security defenses, including intrusion-detection mechanisms for Yahoo's production systems. [...] But during his tenure, Ms. Mayer also rejected the most basic security measure of all: an automatic reset of all user passwords, a step security experts consider standard after a breach. Employees say the move was rejected by Ms. Mayer's team for fear that even something as simple as a password change would drive Yahoo's shrinking email users to other services.

Comments

Short sighted

[sjbe]

Employees say the move was rejected by Ms. Mayer's team for fear that even something as simple as a password change would drive Yahoo's shrinking email users to other services.

At my company we call this "stepping over a dollar to pick up a nickel".

Re:Bad CEO is bad

[elrous0]

Perhaps you missed the fact that this CEO is a *WOMAN*, which makes her a hero and an inspiration.

This is somehow all the evil male patriarchy's fault.

Not a surprise

[ErichTheRed]

Not one organization I have ever worked for has seriously cared about IT security. The second anyone mentions security, the next question is how much it costs. So I don't think it's a Yahoo thing - I think it happens everywhere. Even banks and healthcare companies, who have some of the most regulated data in the world don't go beyond lip service and a few token defenses to protect it. Companies will continue to offshore vital functions to companies that don't care what happens to data. They'll also continue to ignore key parts of new product development relating to security. I think one of the problems is that IT security guys can't articulate this to executives. They're either from the physical security world, or they're so tech-focused that they can't give a coherent presentation to people who only understand what dollars are.

Companies have insurance, and it's always cheaper to say "oops" and give out free credit monitoring for a year than it is to build a serious defense against security breaches. Until it becomes too expensive to ignore, whether in the form of lost business, fines or lost intellectual property, nothing will change.

Re:Not a surprise

[lgw]

Forcing users to change passwords regularly is a security anti-pattern. It produces lower security overall. It's something IT does to express their loathing of the userbase, not a security practice.

Make users change passwords when there's evidence of a breach, and only then.

Re:So Where Was the Board?

[PCM2]

Well, for starters, LinkedIn only leaked data for around 6 million accounts. Yahoo leaked data for half a billion accounts. Also, considering that people use Yahoo for their personal email and to track their finances, the data on Yahoo was potentially much more sensitive than anything on LinkedIn.