Yahoo's 2013 Hack Affected Every One of Its Accounts

A more negative exclamation is needed.

By Hope Corrigan

Web services provider Yahoo has revealed every one of its 3 billion accounts were likely affected by 2013's data breach.

In 2016 when Verizon began purchasing Yahoo's core business, it believed the number of victimised accounts was closer to one billion.

New intelligence has revealed that the breach was much worse than originally thought and may include all of its accounts.

An official statement from Yahoo stated it "took action to protect all accounts." All users who hadn't changed passwords were required to do so, and the company "invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers," making them unusable for account access.

Unlike what was initially suspected, the recent investigation revealed the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information.

Despite this, Yahoo will still be contacting all previously unalerted accounts as well as displaying a message on its Account Security Update page.

Hope Corrigan is an Australian freelance writer for IGN. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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