In 2016, internet service company Yahoo! reported two major data breaches of user account data. The first breach announced had occurred sometime in 2014, affecting over 500 million Yahoo! accounts, but it was the second, separate breach that broke all records – a staggering 1 billion user accounts were believed to have been affected from a breach that was even earlier, in 2013.
Yet in the past few days in October 2017, it has been further announced that in fact it was ALL of Yahoo!’s 3 billion user accounts that had been affected by the breach, which is single-handedly the largest breach ever reported, followed closely by the second Yahoo! breach. The recent breach at credit agency Equifax is also seen as equally damaging, although it hasn’t effected as many people, 145.5 million people have had sensitive data compromised, including names, contact information and some credit card details.
The details that had been taken within the Yahoo! breach includes, full names, email addresses, security questions and answers, dates of birth, phone numbers and hashed passwords. Yahoo! had previously stated that they believed hackers gained access by creating forged cookies to allow attackers into the accounts without needing a password.
Unfortunately, this means that if you had a Yahoo! account in 2013, your personal details could have all been compromised. So, click HERE to find out more about how you can protect yourself.