Here we go again! It seems as though hacking Yahoo has become the favorite past time for “state-sponsored hackers,” as the company revealed that their database went through yet another cyber attack on its users’ data.
Yahoo said in a press release on Wednesday that they had been on the end of another massive hack in the fall of 2013. According to Yahoo, the hack compromised personal information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, MD5-hashed passwords (a form of encryption), dates of birth and security question answers belonging to more than a billion users.
It must be noted that this attack is different from one in the late-2014 attack which surfaced last September, where the company revealed that more than 500 million accounts’ data was leaked due to an attack by “a state-sponsored actor.”
According to Bob Lord, Yahoo’s security head, the company was informed about the leak by law enforcement officials about the stolen data. After that, Yahoo confirmed the authenticity of the reports using the help of forensic experts, but could not identify their identity.
The theft doesn’t seem to include credit card or bank account information; still, Yahoo has requested the potentially affected users to change their passwords and security questions. Users have also been advised to keep an eye on any suspicious emails or calls.