Yahoo! Mail Was Hacked; Users Should Change Their Password ASAP

dgstorm

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For any of our users out there who use Yahoo Mail, you should probably head over there now and change your password. Yahoo themselves shared details this morning on Tumblr that recent security attacks resulted in the theft of some Yahoo passwords and more. Here's a quote from their statement,

Security attacks are unfortunately becoming a more regular occurrence. Recently, we identified a coordinated effort to gain unauthorized access to Yahoo Mail accounts. Upon discovery, we took immediate action to protect our users, prompting them to reset passwords on impacted accounts.

Based on our current findings, the list of usernames and passwords that were used to execute the attack was likely collected from a third-party database compromise. We have no evidence that they were obtained directly from Yahoo’s systems. Our ongoing investigation shows that malicious computer software used the list of usernames and passwords to access Yahoo Mail accounts. The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts’ most recent sent emails.

What we’re doing to protect our users

  • We are resetting passwords on impacted accounts and we are using second sign-in verification to allow users to re-secure their accounts. Impacted users will be prompted (if not, already) to change their password and may receive an email notification or an SMS text if they have added a mobile number to their account.
  • We are working with federal law enforcement to find and prosecute the perpetrators responsible for this attack.
  • We have implemented additional measures to block attacks against Yahoo’s systems.


What you can do to help keep your accounts secure

In addition to adopting better password practices by changing your password regularly and using different variations of symbols and characters, users should never use the same password on multiple sites or services. Using the same password on multiple sites or services makes users particularly vulnerable to these types of attacks.

We regret this has happened and want to assure our users that we take the security of their data very seriously.

It's amazing how much more often these security breaches seem to be happening with companies. Sign of the times?

Source: Yahoo - Tumblr
 

Rhino94

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I'm glad I dont use my yahoo anymore. I only use gmail now because for some reason it just seems to be better in every way. Yahoo is something that is no longer trending with anyone.
 

xeene

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Yahoo has been hacked at least a dozen times since their existence, only a number of times have been publicized. They are probably least secure of all major email accounts.
 

JohnnytheK

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I'm getting tired of my yahoo account knocked off my phone every few months. Gmail is solid over all my devices. Never have to delete and start over with Gmail, I think you're right to abandon yahoo.

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JoeyJ

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I'm assuming this means the same for other services that go through yahoo too right? I have uverse and they have you make an email to logon and while it's att.net it goes through yahoo. So glad that is just a spam email and the one I give out when stores ask for an email
 
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