HACKERS GAIN ACCESS TO MORE THAN 500M YAHOO USER'S ACCOUNT

A release by Yahoo on Thursday said a massive attack on its network in 2014 gain access to data from about 500 million users and may have been “state sponsored.”

“Based on the current analysis, It is believes that information connected with at not less than 500 million user accounts was stolen,” a statement from an authoritative source, the US Internet giant. “Yahoo is working thoroughly with law enforcement on this matter.” The comments were the first confirmation from Yahoo on the huge data breach, and come after a report earlier this year quoting a security researcher saying some 200 million accounts may have been accessed and edited. Stolen information may also included names, email address, birth dates, and scrambled passwords, along with encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers that could help hackers break into victims’ other online accounts,

Yahoo is requesting affected users to change their passwords, and endorsing anyone who hasn’t done so since 2013should equally take the same action as a safeguard. Users of Yahoo online services were urged to evaluation accounts for suspicious action and change passwords and security question information used to log in anywhere else if it matched that at Yahoo.

“Yahoo  and other companies have launched programs to identify and notify users when a company strongly suspects that a state-sponsored actor has besieged an account.”