Yahoo! is a web services provider, that’s taken by Verizon this year through Oath Inc., the company now believes the total amount of accounts hacked in the August 2013 data breach, which was published in December last year, was not just 1 billion, but it was 3 Billion accounts.
The number has been tripled down on what was already the largest data breach in history, the stolen data included names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and security questions and answers. Yahoo said that it got new intelligence while investigating the breach with help from external forensic specialists. It also said that the stolen user’s data did not include passwords in plain text, payment card data.
The company had already asked users to change their passwords and cancel security questions so they couldn’t be used to break into accounts.
Yahoo said:
“Subsequent to Yahoo’s acquisition by Verizon, and during integration, the company recently obtained new intelligence and now believes, following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft. While this is not a new security issue, Yahoo is sending email notifications to the additional affected user accounts.”
Yahoo already notified all users affected by the 2013 security breach (just one billion). The company promised to notify other users.