Yahoo said the personal information of at least 500m users was stolen in an attack on its accounts in 2014, exposing half of its roughly 1bn users ahead of Verizon Communications’ planned acquisition of the Web portal’s assets.
The hack probably involved a “state-sponsored actor”, and stolen information may include names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, encrypted passwords and possibly security questions and answers, Yahoo said on Thursday in a statement.
The continuing investigation doesn’t indicate the theft of payment data or bank account information, or unprotected passwords, Yahoo said.
Potentially affected users are being notified and their accounts are being secured. — (c) 2016 Bloomberg LP