Massive Yahoo Hack Could Affect 500 Million Accounts
Yahoo has been the victim of a serious data breach.
The company said Thursday information "associated with at least 500 million user accounts" have been stolen.
The news was first reported by Re/code. The hack reportedly took place in 2014, although first became news last month, despite the fact Yahoo would neither confirm nor deny it took place.
Yahoo released a statement about the matter, which said in part:
The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers."
Yahoo recommends users immediately change their passwords and update security questions.
While the breach is a serious problem, there is one piece of good news. Financial data, such as bank account numbers and credit card information, were not reportedly taken.
If 500 million accounts were indeed affected, this breach would become the biggest hack in history, topping the 427 million accounts breached on MySpace earlier this year.