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Yahoo: 500 Million Accounts Stolen In Hack By 'State-Sponsored Actor'

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yahoo said hackers stole personal information from 500 million of its user accounts, a massive security breakdown it attributed to a "state sponsored actor." The breach disclosed Thursday, the latest setback for the beleaguered internet company, dates back to late 2014.

That's when high-tech thieves hacked into Yahoo's data centers, the company said. But Yahoo only recently discovered the break-in as part of an ongoing internal investigation.

RELATED: How to change your password.

The stolen data includes users' names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, hashed passwords, and the security questions - and answers - used to verify an accountholder's identity.

Last month, the tech site Motherboard reported that a hacker who uses the name "Peace" boasted that he had account information belonging to 200 million Yahoo users and was trying to sell the data on the web.

Yahoo recommends that users change their passwords if they haven't done so since 2014. The Sunnyvale, California, company said its investigation so far hasn't found any evidence that information about users' bank accounts or credit and debit cards were swiped in the hacking attack. It said it has "no evidence" that the attacker is still in Yahoo's network.

News of the security lapse could cause some people to have second thoughts about relying on Yahoo's services, raising a prickly issue for the company as it tries to sell its digital operations to Verizon Communications for $4.8 billion.

That deal, announced two months ago, isn't supposed to close until early next year. That leaves Verizon with wiggle room to renegotiate the purchase price or even back out if it believes the security breach will harm Yahoo's business. That could happen if users shun Yahoo or file lawsuits because they're incensed by the theft of their personal information.

Verizon said it still doesn't know enough about the Yahoo break-in to assess the potential consequences. "We will evaluate as the investigation continues through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities," the company said in a statement.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.

FULL STATEMENT FROM YAHOO

A recent investigation by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has confirmed that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company's network in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor. The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The ongoing investigation 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.

Yahoo is 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.

Yahoo encourages 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. The company further recommends 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.

Online intrusions and thefts by state-sponsored actors have become increasingly common across the technology industry. Yahoo and other companies have launched programs 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 program in December 2015, independent of the recent investigation, approximately 10,000 users have received such a notice.

Additional information will be available on the Yahoo Security Issue FAQs page, https://yahoo.com/security-update, beginning at 11:30 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on September 22, 2016.

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