Yahoo disclosed Wednesday a breach involving more than 1 billion users took place in August 2013. The company revealed the accounts including birthdates, emails, phone numbers, encrypted and unencrypted security questions may have been stolen by hackers in August 2013.
The company has not been able to determine how the data was stolen. Yahoo’s chief information security officer, wrote in a post announcing the hack, “We have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with this theft.”
This is a separate incident from the September revelation of at least 500 million user accounts compromised. This new attack could represent the largest hack of all time, and news of the breach dropped shares in after-hours trading about 2.5%. Yahoo is notifying the account users and will require them to change their passwords. The announcement could also have implications on the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion, which has not yet been completed. Verizon has since said that it considers the hack a material event that may affect the terms and conditions of the acquisition. “As we’ve said all along, we will evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation,” a Verizon spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday. “We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions.”
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