Yahoo Confirms Breach of Over 1 Billion Accounts Linked to State-Sponsored Actors

Yahoo has disclosed a massive data breach affecting more than one billion user accounts, which occurred in August 2013. This breach is separate from a previously reported incident in 2014 that compromised 500 million accounts. The company believes state-sponsored actors are involved, utilizing sophisticated methods to forge cookies that allowed unauthorized access without passwords. Affected data may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and hashed passwords. Yahoo is notifying all impacted users and mandating password changes. The breach raises concerns about the company's security practices and could impact Verizon's acquisition deal. Forensic experts are still investigating the specifics of the intrusion, which remains unidentified.

Key Points: • Yahoo's breach affects over 1 billion accounts, making it the largest in history. • The attack involved state-sponsored actors using forged cookies for unauthorized access. • Yahoo is mandating password changes for all affected users and has invalidated compromised cookies.