500 million Yahoo accounts hacked in 2014, says report

Washington, September 23 

A “state-sponsored actor” may have stolen data of some half a billion users of Yahoo, the internet giant said, in what is likely the world’s biggest known cyber breach ever.

An investigation by the Silicon Valley-based company 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 company said.

“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,” it said.

Yahoo said the ongoing investigation suggests that stolen information did not include unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information. pti