Breach Brief – Yahoo! Again! A Billion This Time!

Published On December 15, 2016 | By Tom Huskerson | Breach Briefs

Yahoo-headquartersYahoo! admitted today that the previous data breach was just a warm-up act. The latest bad news reveals that user data recovered by authorities uncovered a different hack entirely. Now there are over a billion compromised accounts. Yes, I said a BILLION! 

This the second record breaking data breach of Yahoo! customer data. The previous hack endangered  more than 500 million Yahoo! accounts. It took years for that breach to come to light. 

Bob Lord, Yahoo!’s  Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) said, in a press release,  “As we previously disclosed in November, law enforcement provided us with data files that a third party claimed was 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 more than one billion user accounts.”

Yes, you read that right. More than a billion Yahoo! customer accounts have been vulnerable for over 3 years now.

It seems that Yahoo! employees simply don’t give a damn. Yahoo! admitted that some employees were aware of the breach announced in September as early as 2014. But someone inside Yahoo! decided to dropped the investigation.  

Yahoo! has advised, as it has before,  that “potentially affected users” change their passwords. Clearly Yahoo! has some serious  security  issues.  At one time Yahoo! was one of the biggest, most well known and respected Internet companies.  My how times have changed.

Now the company may die a sad death. At one time Verizon was considering buying the failing company but that could change and there are few other suitors.  According to Business Insider Yahoo! has admitted that Verizon may very well back out of the deal after this latest news.

Craig Siliman,Verizon’s chief lawyer, told reporters that the telecom giant has a “reasonable basis” to believe that Yahoo!’s monstrous data breach is equal to a material impact that lets Verizon trash the $4.83 billion deal.  

If that were to happen we could witness the death of the first giant Internet company. It would be historic but no unprecedented in the business world. You remember PanAm Airlines don’t you?

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About The Author

Tom Huskerson Bio Born in Richmond Virginia Tom Huskerson is a military veteran who settled in California after his discharge. Tom attended Santa Barbara City College where he began his writing career as a campus reporter. He worked as an intern news reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press writing feature stories before moving on to San Francisco. At San Francisco State University Tom studied broadcast communications and began to focus on the Internet. He completed his graduate thesis on Internet advertising. Tom was the first student to ever focus on the Internet as a graduate student at San Francisco State University. After graduation he went to work for Zona Research in California’s Silicone Valley. As a research associate Tom supported senior analyst writing on the latest developments in the Internet industry. During the dot com boom Tom worked for several web businesses as a market researcher and analyst. As a writer and researcher Tom has authored various technical works including a training program for Charles Schwab security. Other projects included professional presentations on workplace violence and hiring security contractors. Tom has also written both fiction and non-fiction works and blogging for a travel website. He has published two books of short stories and completed two novels. Tom is the owner of Scribe of Life Literature and EbonyCandle.com. Tom is not the chief editor for the OnTechStreet. com. A news and information blog that focuses on tech news for African-Americans. The blog is the result of his desire to inform the African American community of the dangers and benefits of the cyber age. In his blog Tom reports on information security, new and analysis, scams and hoaxes, legal happenings and various topics that arise from the age of information. Tom believes that technology is a necessary tool for black people and they should know what is happening. Tom writes believing that techno speak is for the professional and that valuable information can be communicated using plain language. As a result he has embraced the motto, Less Tech, More Knowledge.

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