Also Read: U.S. Judge Says Bitcoin Is Money In A Case Tied To JPMorgan Hack
The 500 million users affected by the cyberattack against Yahoo are the most recent victims of corporate data breaches. Here’s a look at the biggest breaches over the last few years. From recent reports, about 500 million Yahoo accounts were hacked and the hacker exposed full information of the accounts including names, email addresses, phone numbers & dates of birth and also the security questions and answers of some accounts.
Brett McDowell from a security organization stated that “Cybercriminals know that consumers use the same passwords across websites and applications, which is why these millions of leaked password credentials are so useful for perpetuating fraud”.
On August 1, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox reported that a hacker from cybercriminal aka “Peace” or “Peace of Mind” claimed about selling millions of Yahoo passwords on the dark net. Then Cox decided to test the data to confirm about the hack. He collected data of about 5,000 accounts and tested by himself and found that all the accounts information were real.
Then Verizon stated that “We will evaluate, as the investigation continues, through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities”.
Later Yahoo stated that “A recent investigation by Yahoo! Inc. has confirmed that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor. 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.
The ongoing investigation suggests that stolen information did not include unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information; payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system that the investigation has found to be affected. Based on the ongoing investigation, Yahoo believes that information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen and the investigation has found no evidence that the state-sponsored actor is currently on Yahoo’s network. Yahoo is working closely with law enforcement on this matter”.
These accounts are still not secure and if you’re a Yahoo user then change your account password immediately.
Terry Ts 
Rudhra Nandu