In this Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, file photo, Yahoo president and CEO Marissa Mayer speaks throughout a keynote address at the International Gadgets Show, in Nevada. Yahoo said Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014, that usernames and passwords of its email customers have already been stolen and used to gain access to accounts, however the company isn’t saying just how many accounts have already been affected. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
NY - Yahoo said Thursday that usernames and passwords of its email customers have already been stolen and used to gain access to accounts, however the company was maybe not saying just how many accounts have already been affected.
Yahoo may be the second-largest email service global, after Google’s Gmail, based on the research firm comScore. You can find 273 million Yahoo mail accounts global, including 81 million in the U. S.
Yahoo Inc. said in a weblog post on its breach that “The information sought in the attack appears to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts’ latest sent emails. ”
Which could mean hackers were searching for additional email addresses to send spam or scam messages. By grabbing real names from those sent folders, hackers could take to create bogus messages appear more legitimate to recipients.
The larger danger: usage of email accounts may lead to much more serious breaches involving banking and shopping websites. That’s because many websites use email to reset passwords. Hackers could take to logging directly into this type of site with the Yahoo email, for example, and have a password reminder be sent by email.
The breach may be the second problem for Yahoo’s mail service in 8 weeks. In December, the service suffered a multi-day outage that prompted Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer issue an apology.
Yahoo said it believes the usernames and passwords weren’t collected from its systems, but from the third-party database. It’s maybe not clear why a third-party database could have home elevators Yahoo accounts.
Yahoo said it really is resetting passwords on affected accounts and contains “implemented additional measures” to block further attacks.
The business would maybe not comment beyond the info in its weblog post. It said it really is dealing with federal police.
NY - Yahoo said Thursday that usernames and passwords of its email customers have already been stolen and used to gain access to accounts, however the company was maybe not saying just how many accounts have already been affected.
Yahoo may be the second-largest email service global, after Google’s Gmail, based on the research firm comScore. You can find 273 million Yahoo mail accounts global, including 81 million in the U. S.
Yahoo Inc. said in a weblog post on its breach that “The information sought in the attack appears to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts’ latest sent emails. ”
Which could mean hackers were searching for additional email addresses to send spam or scam messages. By grabbing real names from those sent folders, hackers could take to create bogus messages appear more legitimate to recipients.
The larger danger: usage of email accounts may lead to much more serious breaches involving banking and shopping websites. That’s because many websites use email to reset passwords. Hackers could take to logging directly into this type of site with the Yahoo email, for example, and have a password reminder be sent by email.
The breach may be the second problem for Yahoo’s mail service in 8 weeks. In December, the service suffered a multi-day outage that prompted Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer issue an apology.
Yahoo said it believes the usernames and passwords weren’t collected from its systems, but from the third-party database. It’s maybe not clear why a third-party database could have home elevators Yahoo accounts.
Yahoo said it really is resetting passwords on affected accounts and contains “implemented additional measures” to block further attacks.
The business would maybe not comment beyond the info in its weblog post. It said it really is dealing with federal police.
