Originally it was thought that the hack affected more than one billion accounts. The new information comes from an investigation that followed Verizon's takeover of Yahoo.
One of the largest data breaches in history just tripled. Yahoo was hacked in 2013 and it was reported that over a billion accounts were hacked. On Tuesday, Yahoo revealed that that all three billion accounts on Yahoo have been compromised due to the attack. The new information stems from an investigation that happened as a part of Verizon's takeover of Yahoo. To put things in perspective, the 3 billion accounts registered on Yahoo is greater than Facebook, Instagram and Twitter users combined. Yahoo has 1 billion monthly active users overall and just 225 million monthly active users for Yahoo Mail.
"Following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, [we believe] that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft," Suzanne Philion, a spokeswoman for the Verizon unit Oath, said in a statement on Tuesday to CNET.
When it comes to the stolen information, the breach did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data or bank account information. Yahoo is still working to determine who is behind the attack.
If you are one looking to secure yourself, you should start by changing your password. You should also change your security question, and enable two factor authentication. As tempting as it sounds, it isn’t advisable to delete your old Yahoo account. Once you delete your Yahoo account, Yahoo recycles your old email address. This leaves it in a position of vulnerability and the possibility of impersonation so we suggest you auto forward mails (if you need to) to your current active email account or just follow the above-mentioned steps and let the account lie.
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