Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — In a statement released on Thursday, Yahoo confirmed that some user account information was stolen in late 2014.
The company says that information potentially including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and in some cases either encrypted or unencrypted security questions could have been stolen. Yahoo says the breach likely affected at least 500 million user accounts.
The company suspects that a state-sponsored actor was responsible for the hack. It says it will notify those users it believes were affected, and ask them to change their passwords and adopt different methods of account verification.
Yahoo also invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers to prevent their use for accessing accounts.
The company says it is working with law enforcement officials in response to the breach, and will recommend that users also change passwords and security questions and answers for any accounts that share the same or similar information with their Yahoo account.
“An increasingly connected world has come with increasingly sophisticated threats,” Yahoo’s statement says. “Industry, government and users are constantly in the crosshairs of adversaries. Through strategic proactive detection initiatives and active response to unauthorized access of accounts, Yahoo will continue to strive to stay ahead of these ever-evolving online threats and to keep our users and our platforms secure.”
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