Yahoo could be the latest high-profile victim of a major data breach. The security breach transpired sometime around last month and now the company is in the process of making it public after a month of damage control.
The hack has reportedly affected 200 million user accounts. (photo credit: Reuters)
The apparent hit affected 200 million accounts whose login credentials are reportedly being sold on the web for about $1,800 each, as reported by Recode. But details as to what happened and how it was discovered aren’t clear. Yahoo will be clarifying those details in an official note after concluding its investigation.
Without question, this could devalue Yahoo’s shares greatly, considering they have been running down a spiral of bad luck lately. Just recently the company was acquired by telecommunications giant Verizon for $4.8 bn. Once regulators and investigators are done with their probe on the incident, Yahoo could be slapped with fines and penalties for their action or inaction in the issue, which will directly affect Verizon.
Hopefully, what should come out of the confirmation is exactly what Yahoo was up to for the past month and how they are trying to minimize the impact of the situation.
The tech world has always been plagued by hackers, whether they are big organizations or up and coming start-ups. Sony had a bad run when their systems had been hacked, compromising most of their PlayStation user data. Yahoo also had earlier faced a similar breach in 2014 when Yahoo Mail was compromised by hackers.
Yahoo is falling on hard times now. Being one of the pioneers of Internet, its popularity has declined with the emergence of Google. The Sunnyvale-based company reported a $440 million loss for the second quarter of 2016.