One billion yahoo accounts hack

[Deleted]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38324527

deep breath...im with yahoo.

[the game]

People still use yahoo? Are they also using america online floppy disks?

[Nasukkin]

People still use yahoo? Are they also using america online floppy disks?

No. What the OP fails to mention in his post (unless you read the article) is:

• This affects accounts dating back as far as 2013
• e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and passwords are compromised
• Bank/Payment info is not compromised

So, even though people aren't using it so much today, people who were using it back in 2013 need to be worried.

[Blueobelisk]

Yeah I used yahoo. Someone sent spam emails out from my account until I changed the password. This was like 2 years ago. But even today they still send out emails to my contact list under my name from some bogus spammy email address.

[lockedout]

No. What the OP fails to mention in his post (unless you read the article) is:

• This affects accounts dating back as far as 2013
• e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and passwords are compromised
• Bank/Payment info is not compromised

So, even though people aren't using it so much today, people who were using it back in 2013 need to be worried.

Since most people use the same passwords for everything and rarely change their passwords combo hacks will be rife.

[Deleted]

Oh snap.

/10snaps

[Nasukkin]

Precisely.

[callipygoustp]

People still use yahoo? Are they also using america online floppy disks?

Is there an alternative that is significantly better? I use google for my professional email(since 2004) and yahoo for my personal email(since 1998). I don't see a noticeable difference between those two. Is there something better than either of those that I may not be aware of?

[Deleted]

Hey, I remember this company from the year 2000!

[Deleted]

Reminder: "Don't forget to give us your mobile phone number, so that we can secure your account"


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

[Zeta333]

No. What the OP fails to mention in his post (unless you read the article) is:

• This affects accounts dating back as far as 2013
• e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and passwords are compromised
• Bank/Payment info is not compromised

So, even though people aren't using it so much today, people who were using it back in 2013 need to be worried.

and yahoo stopped being relevant in 2006 when gmail became easy to get an account on. I guess it shouldnt suprise me as there are people who use isp provided emails as well.

[Deleted]

I'm just amazed there's 1 billion people with yahoo

Come on now, how many of those are bots or accounts that have been inactive for years

[Shadow Fox]

People still use yahoo? Are they also using america online floppy disks?

I was just about to say this too...

And since Yahoo owns Firefox, I fear that the systems are sync'd...

[shrunken]

This is old news that for some reason gets posted about every 2 weeks on various forums I read.

[Deleted]

So they hacked a BILLION Yahoo accounts..

What are they gonna use it for?..

[cuafpr]

So they hacked a BILLION Yahoo accounts..

What are they gonna use it for?..

mostly spam and phishing, yahoo accounts are often recovery emails for other accounts like gmail so they can be used for that if user names are matched. Add in the people that used yahoo before gmail or other services were common and its a likely attached to bank info, CC info, and other such sites. Plenty of good info to obtain.

[zenkai]

Is there an alternative that is significantly better? I use google for my professional email(since 2004) and yahoo for my personal email(since 1998). I don't see a noticeable difference between those two. Is there something better than either of those that I may not be aware of?

It's just a snide millennial thinking he's cool, nothing is wrong with using yahoo as his email.

- - - Updated - - -

So they hacked a BILLION Yahoo accounts..

What are they gonna use it for?..

A lot of people use their emails and their same email password for all sorts of accounts. So having someones email and PW might get you access to things like Amazon, Paypal, etc.

[shrunken]

Obviously the hack is old news, it happened in 2013. What's new is the information about how many accounts were compromised.

Yahoo was popular for a number of years (almost 2 decades), but most of their accounts have been long-since defunct. That was the case even in 2013.

I'm not sure that it's news, but the number shouldn't surprise anyone.

[shrunken]

And, as has been pointed out, the main issue is that many people have a single password. Even if their account was defunct their password may still be their password. As for not being surprised by the number, it's not about being surprised. It's about informing people of the extent of the hack. If it was a 50k account hack the odds of someone who had a Yahoo account being hacked would be much less than it is when it's a billion accounts.

Well, everyone's had 3 years of knowing full well that Yahoo was hacked on a massive scale. Yahoo contacted all of their users in ~late 2014 and pressed them to change their passwords because of a breach in their security.

If people haven't heeded those warnings by the end of 2016, no forum post is going to help them.

[shrunken]

The point of the news item was to inform people. The point of the forum post is to discuss the news item. I know, this stuff is complicated for some.

What can be said in the 50,000th thread about this topic that hasn't already been said in 2014?