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Yahoo Says Hackers Stole Information From Over 1 Billion Accounts (go.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ones-and-zeros dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a breaking report from ABC News: Yahoo says it believes hackers stole data from more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. The Sunnyvale, California, company says it's a different breach from the one it disclosed in September, when it said 500 million accounts were exposed. That new hack revelation raises questions about whether Verizon will try to change the terms of its $4.8 billion proposed acquisition of Yahoo. Yahoo says the information stolen may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and security questions and answers. The company says it believes bank-account information and payment-card data were not affected.

17 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. If this deal doesn't collapse... by ChiefGeneralManager · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ....we know our privacy is non-existent. That Verizon could continue to talk of a deal after the last Yahoo! breach was amazing. If Verizon continues with an additional *billion* it shows that neither the market nor the establishment can penalise egregious data loss. It's pathetic that they claim bank account information is likely safe, but the combination of personal data _plus security questions and answers_ opens a whole new field. Wow.

    1. Re:If this deal doesn't collapse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's pathetic that they claim bank account information is likely safe, but the combination of personal data _plus security questions and answers_ opens a whole new field.

      That's why I never give my real birthdate, location, or real answers the security questions. I don't even use the same answers across different services. It's really an obvious weakness whenever you consider that a hacker could potentially build up a pretty detailed personal history on you just by collecting all the answers to security questions, from various websites that you login into.

    2. Re:If this deal doesn't collapse... by scrib · · Score: 4, Informative

      I agree completely. My password manager comment section is full of randomly generated passwords to answer those damn "security" questions.
      "In what city were you born?" "cnf3kPiDkYDeYUur"

      --
      Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
    3. Re:If this deal doesn't collapse... by Zak3056 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Cleveland

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
  2. Yahoo should simply cease to exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It has utterly failed in every conceivable way. File for bankruptcy.

    1. Re:Yahoo should simply cease to exist by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      They haven't caused a major oil or chemical spill, so strictly speaking they haven't failed in every conceivable way!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Yahoo should simply cease to exist by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I see no reason for them to exist.

      I do. They are a great site for throwaway email accounts, so I can make one-time-use of sites that insist that I "create an account". Of the billion compromised accounts, I suspect that only a small percentage are currently used by real people.

    3. Re:Yahoo should simply cease to exist by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Funny

      They haven't caused a major oil or chemical spill, so strictly speaking they haven't failed in every conceivable way!

      It is annoying. People that overuse hyperbole should be literally shot. :)

    4. Re:Yahoo should simply cease to exist by Lord+Apathy · · Score: 2

      That is what the mailinator.com is for.

      --

      Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification

    5. Re:Yahoo should simply cease to exist by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm finding more and more places that won't accept mailinator.com when registering, including its various alternate domains (there's a project that keeps an updated list). A lot of sites now completely disallow signing up through Tor, too. In order to make a Bugzilla account to report something anonymously, I had to first create a Github account, which you can do over Tor, and then use that to authenticate to Bugzilla. Fucking annoying.

      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  3. Why though? by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

    Why would Verizon care if a company they are buying is horribly insecure? Especially when Yahoo's users don't seem to care.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:Why though? by tomhath · · Score: 2

      I use yahoo email as my spam sink when a site I don't care about insists on me providing an email address. Let 'em hack it, they got nothing from me.

    2. Re:Why though? by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why would Verizon care if a company they are buying is horribly insecure? Especially when Yahoo's users don't seem to care.

      They might see it as a plus! "Finally, customers we can really abuse that will put up with it!"

  4. The company says it believes bank-account ... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...The company says it believes bank-account information and payment-card data were not affected....

    Geesh. Given the history of yahoo attacks and their announcements, give it a few weeks and then we'll probably see yet another announcement from yahoo about how hackers got bank account info and payment data. It has become apparent that Yahoo may not possess the ability to run an online portal securely.

  5. Re:$39 Billion in market cap by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't see how Yahoo has $39 billion in market cap.

    Yahoo was an early investor in Alibaba, and owns about 15% of Alibaba's stock. If you subtract out the value of that stock, the rest of Yahoo actually had negative value prior to Verizon's offer.

  6. Re:why now? by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Seems to indicate major incompetence.

    Hush, you fool! If you imply that a female CEO is anything less than amazing you'll have the SJW's showing up to protest our misogyny!

    OH GOD, IT'S TOO LATE! Here they come! HOW DID THEY MAKE THOSE SIGNS SO FAST?!?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  7. Where's my cut? by jon3k · · Score: 4, Funny

    So I think I'm just going to go to the darknet markets and sell all my personal info directly. At least then I get a cut.