Data theft of over a billion Yahoo users accounts – FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Sunnyvale (dpa) – The Internet group Yahoo is another gigantic datathe steel became known, this time it’s even stolen information to more than a billion user accounts.

the attacker came in August 2013, is expected to name, E-Mail addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and obscured passwords, announced Yahoo on Wednesday. In terms of the number of affected users of the largest known data Theft at all.

In some cases, could also be encrypted and non-encrypted security questions and answers to be affected, it said. Such questions – for example, after the name of the first pet or favorite color to be used when a user forgets his password. Under certain circumstances, you can be for Criminals so as much value as the password itself. Also, there is the risk that the user also selected at other services, the same combinations of questions and answers.

in September, Yahoo had acknowledged the theft of data, at the end of 2014, at least 500 million user profiles were affected. It was the same type of data. According to current knowledge, no passwords were in plain text, or credit card and Bank account information been stolen, it was also this time again. The payment data would be stored in another System.

The suspicion seems to be confirmed that the attackers could also have permanent access to the data of individual users. They had gained access to the Yahoo software code, with which you have been able to forge Cookies, told Yahoo. These are small Software elements that can be stored in the web browser and, for example, ensure that you be E-Mail, without having to enter a password every Time.

The group suspect that the attacks by the same attackers as 2014 went out on behalf of the state, it said. Which country you will be allocated, has not been notified till today.

The telecoms group Verizon confirmed according to the new admission, in July, negotiated the purchase of the Yahoo-Webgeschäfts for 4.8 billion dollars come to the test. Verizon had previously stated to be at the conclusion of the deal, not on the suspicion of data theft has been informed.