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DP34 Biggest Data Breaches - 1 - Yahoo
Throughout history, there have been all kinds of data breaches. These breaches have been happening more and more as time went on. But while we hear more about recent data breaches where millions of peoples data is compromised, they’re actually smaller than some of the other larger data breaches.
In a series I’m calling “Biggest Data Breaches” I want to share with you five of the biggest data breaches at the date of this recording. How many were affected, how it happened, amongst other things.
The first one I’ll touch on is the largest one: Yahoo. During 2013 and 2014, Yahoo was hacked into and they reported that 500 million accounts were affected. From those affected, Yahoo called customers to take protective measures to secure their accounts.
While the hack was definitely disheartening, it was worse for the Web giant. During this time, Yahoo was trying to sell its core business to telecommunications giant Verizon. That deal almost fell through when they had to reveal all of the information about breaches over the years.
What was troubling was in 2013, a previously disclosed attack impacted all three billion of Yahoo’s users. This was uncovered when Verizon sent outside forensic experts to asses how many accounts were affected.
At the time it was surprising how Yahoo managed to not only get bought out but got away with doing this. And this sort of behaviour Yahoo exhibited has been passed down amongst other companies.
Why do I say this? Because Verizon bought Yahoo in 2016, three years after that breach. It was also two years after another breath that occurred in 2014 which impacted 500 million accounts.
The fact that Yahoo took that long to reveal that information is a common trend we’ll find with a lot of companies. They’ll spend months or even years before telling the public. Though they’ll have the curtesy of taking action in that moment. As was the case with Yahoo calling customers to change passwords.
This is the largest data breach and what was stollen is probably still being sold around to this day. Digital thieves managed to nab names, dates, phone numbers, and passwords. This also made it easy for people to reset lost passwords to other sites if the user’s backup email is their yahoo email.
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By dpappThroughout history, there have been all kinds of data breaches. These breaches have been happening more and more as time went on. But while we hear more about recent data breaches where millions of peoples data is compromised, they’re actually smaller than some of the other larger data breaches.
In a series I’m calling “Biggest Data Breaches” I want to share with you five of the biggest data breaches at the date of this recording. How many were affected, how it happened, amongst other things.
The first one I’ll touch on is the largest one: Yahoo. During 2013 and 2014, Yahoo was hacked into and they reported that 500 million accounts were affected. From those affected, Yahoo called customers to take protective measures to secure their accounts.
While the hack was definitely disheartening, it was worse for the Web giant. During this time, Yahoo was trying to sell its core business to telecommunications giant Verizon. That deal almost fell through when they had to reveal all of the information about breaches over the years.
What was troubling was in 2013, a previously disclosed attack impacted all three billion of Yahoo’s users. This was uncovered when Verizon sent outside forensic experts to asses how many accounts were affected.
At the time it was surprising how Yahoo managed to not only get bought out but got away with doing this. And this sort of behaviour Yahoo exhibited has been passed down amongst other companies.
Why do I say this? Because Verizon bought Yahoo in 2016, three years after that breach. It was also two years after another breath that occurred in 2014 which impacted 500 million accounts.
The fact that Yahoo took that long to reveal that information is a common trend we’ll find with a lot of companies. They’ll spend months or even years before telling the public. Though they’ll have the curtesy of taking action in that moment. As was the case with Yahoo calling customers to change passwords.
This is the largest data breach and what was stollen is probably still being sold around to this day. Digital thieves managed to nab names, dates, phone numbers, and passwords. This also made it easy for people to reset lost passwords to other sites if the user’s backup email is their yahoo email.