Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), the operator of the biggest U.S. Web portal, said that more than 450,000 user names and passwords were stolen from one of its sites, and it could also effect the other email services like Hotmail, Gmail, and AOL users.
Hackers belonging to a group known as the D33D Co., posted the user names and passwords online for what appeared to be 453,492 accounts containing login credentials for Yahoo and other accounts, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT)’s Hotmail, and other accounts, such as Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG)’s Gmail, and AOL Inc. (AOL) (AOL).
Hackers exposed a file online on July 11 containing login credentials of users of Yahoo Inc, GOOG, MSFT and AOL Inc. and the data breaches highlight the ease of infiltrating the systems, even at some of the most widely used and sophisticated technology companies.
Yahoo Inc joins a growing list of Internet companies and social networking platforms like LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) (LNKD), EHarmony Inc and CBS Corp. (CBS) (CBS)’s Last.fm music site that have recently had user information compromised.
The hacking happened just before Yahoo’s annual shareholder meeting, where the interim Chief Executive Officer Ross Levinsohn said he’s going to implement a clear strategy for the company as it tries to restore investor confidence and find a permanent CEO. The company that has had five CEOs since early 2009, needs to alter its marketing strategy to attract more users and ad dollars as it facing challenges from Google and Facebook Inc.
Yahoo Inc said in the statement “We are taking immediate action by fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users accounts may have been compromised, we apologize to all affected users.”
Yahoo Inc users also need to consider changing their passwords to other sites for which they might have used the same password, because there are chances that hackers tend to test those passwords across multiple sites, according to Computer security experts.
The top five stolen passwords from the batch were these passwords, “password,” “123456,””welcome,” “ninja” and “abc123,” a senior research fellow at security firm ESET, David Harley said said.
Article source: http://www.pt-news.org/yahoo-inc-nasdaqyhoo-data-breach-compromised-450000-passwords/126470/
