As the news of some 500 million Yahoo electronic mail (email) accounts
hacked in 2014, continue to trend, experts have proffered some immediate solutions
including the usage of ‘Yahoo Account Key’ reports ITRealms.
According to some security experts from Yahoo, every account holder has
been advised to take three distinct actions.
These actions, ITRealms gathered include that every Yahoo
account holder should immediately change their password, especially if they
have not done some since 2014.
They also advised that account holders to change their security
questions and answers relating to their password on Yahoo.
Further, ITRealms
gathered that experts canvassed Yahoo account holders change other accounts
with same information if any and mostly same with their Yahoo account details.
The company further recommended that users avoid clicking on links
or downloading attachments from suspicious emails and that they be cautious of
unsolicited communications that ask for personal information.
Additionally, Yahoo
asks users to consider using Yahoo
Account Key, a simple authentication tool that eliminates the need
to use a password altogether.
Meanwhile Yahoo is pointing accusing finger on government, although it
did not mention which of the country’s government is reference, but insisted
that users should change their password as soon as possible.
According to a press statement made available to ITRealms by Yahoo Incorporated quoted
the chief
information security officer, Bob Lord, as saying that a recent investigation
by Yahoo! confirmed that a copy
of certain user account information were stolen from the company's network in
late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor.
ITRealms was also informed that the
account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone
numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, most of which were with bcrypt and,
in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.
The ongoing
investigation, Yahoo said, suggests that stolen information did not include
unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information; payment
card data and bank account information are not stored in the system that the
investigation has found to be affected.
“Based on
the ongoing investigation, Yahoo
believes that information associated with at least 500 million user accounts
was stolen and the investigation has found no evidence that the state-sponsored
actor is currently in Yahoo's network. Yahoo
is working closely with law enforcement on this matter,” part of the press
statement read.
Yahoo, therefore said, its
notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their
accounts.
“These steps include invalidating unencrypted security questions
and answers so that they cannot be used to access an account and asking
potentially affected users to change their passwords. Yahoo
is also recommending that users who haven't changed their passwords since 2014
do so,” the company said.
Advising users to review their
online accounts for suspicious activity and to change their password and
security questions and answers for any other accounts on which they use the
same or similar information used for their Yahoo account.
ITRealms recalls that online intrusions
and thefts by state-sponsored actors have become increasingly common across the
technology industry.
Just as Yahoo and other companies have launched programmes
to detect and notify users when a company strongly suspects that a
state-sponsored actor has targeted an account. Since the inception of Yahoo's programme in December 2015,
independent of the recent investigation, approximately 10,000 users have
received such a notice.
Nenye Dom/GEE
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