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Yahoo's Billion-User Database Reportedly Sold On the Dark Web for Just $300,000 - NYT (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As if 2016 wasn't shitty enough for Yahoo -- which admitted to two separate breaches that saw 500 million users' and then 1 billion users' details stolen by hackers -- the New York Times reports that a billion-user database was sold on the Dark Web last August for $300,000. That's according to Andrew Komarov, chief intelligence office at security firm InfoArmor. He told NYT that three buyers, including two prominent spammers and another who might be involved in espionage tactics purchased the entire database at the aforementioned price from a hacker group believed to based in Eastern Europe. It's lovely to know that it only costs $300,000 to be able to threaten a billion people's online existence -- which means each account is only worth $0.0003 to hackers who can ruin your life online in a matter of minutes. Yahoo also doesn't yet know who made off with all the data from the attack in 2013, which is said to be the largest breach of any company ever.
It's lovely to know that it only costs $300,000 to be able to threaten a billion people's online existence -- which means each account is only worth $0.0003 to hackers who can ruin your life online in a matter of minutes.
I love the smell of hyperbole in the morning.
Would the OP be happier if the database had commanded a much higher price?
Might be the most profitable thing you've done in a decade or more!
We are writing to inform you about a data security issue that may involve your Yahoo account information. We have taken steps to secure your account and are working closely with law enforcement.
What Happened?
Law enforcement provided Yahoo in November 2016 with data files that a third party claimed was Yahoo user data. We analyzed this data with the assistance of outside forensic experts and found that it appears to be Yahoo user data. Based on further analysis of this data by the forensic experts, we believe an unauthorized third party, in August 2013, stole data associated with a broader set of user accounts, including yours. We have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with this theft. We believe this incident is likely distinct from the incident we disclosed on September 22, 2016.
What Information Was Involved?
The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. Not all of these data elements may have been present for your account. The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. Payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system we believe was affected.
What We Are Doing
We are taking action to protect our users:
What You Can Do
We encourage you to follow these security recommendations:
Additionally, please consider using Yahoo Account Key, a simple authentication tool that eliminates the need to use a password on Yahoo altogether.
For More Information
For more information about this issue and our security resources, please visit the Yahoo Security Issues FAQs page available at https://yahoo.com/security-upd....
Protecting your information is important to us and we work continuously to strengthen our defenses.
Sincerely,
Bob Lord
Chief Information Security Officer
Yahoo
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Maybe we should start thinking about ways to mitigate this kind of thing. If putting all your eggs in one basket and watching it isn't working
then maybe it's better to start thinking about ways to break it up. If instead of having companes like google, yahoo, and facebook with
billions of users, we had hundreds of companies each with a million users apiece then the profit potential is greatly reduced. It still takes
the same amount of work to hack into the system but if you only get 1M accounts then your profit is only $300 instead of $300,000.
Are you kidding me? If someone knew I had a Yahoo account, I'd have to jump off a bridge from embarrassment.
Do you mean that Yahoo account I started way back when with the fake personal details just so I could use Yahoo messenger? One one I never use for email? That one?
(Makes me wonder what happened to my ICQ account)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Just wait 'til they sell the trillion mail addresses at mailinator!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
who puts in accurate info for DoB anyway
Just about everyone who is over 18 and doesn't have a place to keep a copy of all the fake information for account recovery.
She didn't get to where she is with sexual favors. She got there the same way men become CEO - she's an incompetent sociopath.
Are you kidding me? If someone knew I had a Yahoo account, I'd have to jump off a bridge from embarrassment.
Sent from my AOL account.
I know Yahoo for one thing. Throw away accounts for testing malware and spam sites. I know plenty of people who use them that way, and worked at places with burner phones to handle their great security of requiring a phone number to send/receive text to activate accounts.
Oh Noes! Hackers have burner phone numbers and disposable accounts, most likely housing messages with Malware inside. If the people who paid for these were from a different part of society I'd be concerned that they were ripped off.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So there's either a backdoor into the system that is still open, or this is an internal breach, like an employee stealing information to finance his ($300k) retirement?
Alternative Right.