500 Million Yahoo User Accounts Hacked

Yahoo has confirmed on Thursday, 23rd of September that not less than 500 million user accounts has been stolen by hackers as a result of a hack on their website in late 2014.

Below is the exact statement given by Yahoo on their website:

We have confirmed, based on a recent investigation, that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from our network in late 2014 by what we believe 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.

They also added that even though bank accounts and social security numbers were not compromised; people should be wary of this hack attack’s effect on other social accounts. And because the breach happened two years ago, a lot of accounts with same passwords as that time are still highly vulnerable

If your account is was one of the suspected compromised one, you will be prompted to enter a new password as soon as you log on.

Changing your password to strong one is advisable, when I say strong, I mean a combination of numbers, letters and special characters e.g 123abc@

Another way to protect your account is by using two-step verification you can get more info on that on Yahoo website

 Please take note of the statement below from Yahoo

 Please note that the email from Yahoo about this issue does not ask you to click on any links or contain attachments and does not request your personal information. If an email you receive about this issue prompts you to click on a link, download an attachment, or asks you for information, the email was not sent by Yahoo and may be an attempt to steal your personal information. Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from such suspicious emails.