Yahoo confirms massive leak of 500 million user accounts (2024)

FAQs

Yahoo confirms massive leak of 500 million user accounts? ›

Late 2014: breach

You'll probably know by now that the impact of the breaches has led Yahoo to agree to a payout of up to $25,00 per person affected by the cyberattack, as part of a $117.5 million settlement for 194 million people. The deadline to apply for a payout—July 20—is close, so now's the time to get your claim in.

The data stolen was information from email accounts such as: names; phone numbers; dates-of-birth; passwords and email addresses. Encrypted and unencrypted security questions and answers were taken as well.

Yahoo, then a publicly traded company, was acquired by Verizon in 2017 for a little over $4 billion. However, in October 2017, the company revealed that the total number of users impacted by the breach stood at 3 billion. Experts consider the hack the largest discovered in the history of the internet.

The POLP could have implemented for all roles and credentials at Yahoo. Yahoo did not report the breach, which occurred in 2014, until 2016. A large proportion of the data could have been protected by communicating to their user base and asking for simple password resets.

Yahoo is close to reaching a $117.5 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over a series of data breaches that affected users between 2012 and 2016 — and your employees are potentially eligible for a $100 check and/or free credit monitoring if they had an account during that period.

The Settlement Administrator is working to finalize settlement payments to be sent to valid class members. An estimated mailing date will be posted as soon as possible. However, there is an expectation that payments will be made within the first half of 2023.

Signs of a hacked account

You're not receiving any emails. Your Yahoo Mail is sending spam to your contacts. You see logins from unexpected locations on your recent activity page. Your account info or mail settings were changed without your knowledge.

Yahoo! (/ˈjɑːhuː/, styled yahoo! in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management and 10% by Verizon Communications.

People with Yahoo! accounts were advised to take several steps to protect themselves, including changing their passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, monitoring their accounts for suspicious activity, and being cautious of phishing attempts.

Which company has the largest data breach in history? ›

Look no further than the recently released 2024 Cybersecurity Almanac. In what is considered the largest data breach in history, all 3 billion Yahoo user accounts were compromised by a 2013 breach that went undetected for three years.

1. Meta (Facebook) : $1.3 Billion. In May 2023, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) concluded an enquiry into Meta Platform Ireland Limited (“Meta Ireland”) it had initiated in Aug 2020, billing the social media giant €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) for violation of the GDPR.

Data exposed during a breach creates a serious fraud risk. Sensitive information that could wind up in the hands of criminals or on the dark web after a data breach includes: Your full names. Email addresses.

Dubbed RockYou2024, this colossal data dump was unveiled by a user named “ObamaCare” on a prominent hacking forum, revealing a staggering 9.9 billion unique passwords in plain text.

There's No Set Data Breach Amount, But…

It's important to note that there's no one “set,” fixed amount for how much a person could receive from a data breach case. For example, there are so many factors that can go into it, such as the severity of the injury you suffered (typically financial damage but not always).

Under the settlement, each claim will be valued at $700 or the actual amount of the claim — whichever is greater — up to a maximum of $10,000. In order to receive a payment from the settlement, class members must submit a valid claim form by Dec. 23, 2022.

In December 2016, Yahoo disclosed the 2013 breach, and that one billion user accounts had been compromised. Almost a year later, in October 2017 they revised that estimate and reported that all three billion Yahoo accounts had been compromised in the breach.

What does the Settlement provide? Defendants will pay $63,000,000 into a Settlement Fund, which will be distributed to Class Members who submit Valid Claims. Class Members who submit Valid Claims will receive $700 or the actual amount of the claim—whichever is higher—up to a maximum of $10,000.