Were you hit by the Yahoo hack in 2013? Here’s what to do and how to change your Yahoo Mail password
The company has now tripled the number of accounts it believes were compromised
YAHOO revealed that they had experienced a breach of all three billion user email accounts in August 2013.
The company, now part of Oath, initially said that personal information including names, email addresses and security questions relating to one billion accounts were all accessed by a "third-party".
The company still hasn't been able to identify how the data was taken from the accounts with Yahoo's chief information security company saying: “We have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with this theft."
He added: “The stolen user account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (using MD5) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers."
This hack is a separate incident to the data theft that afflicted 500 million accounts the company reported in September of this year which occurred in 2014.
But what should you do to digitally protect yourself?
The Sun is on hand with all you need to know about this online security issue.
What is Yahoo doing about it?
Outside forensic experts were brought in following Yahoo being acquired by Verizon, and the company has now tripled the number of accounts it believes were compromised.
A statement said the user account information that was stolen did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information and that all affected customers have been contacted.
The company's chief information security officer Chandra McMahon said: "Verizon is committed to the highest standards of accountability and transparency, and we proactively work to ensure the safety and security of our users and networks in an evolving landscape of online threats."
What should you do if you have been hacked?
- Change your password (especially if it has been the same for a number of years)
- Update your security questions and answers, and choose answers that aren’t easy to find online
- Ask yourself if you used the same password/security questions on other accounts (if so, change them as well, and never recycle the same ones again)
- Get a better, more complicated password that hackers won’t be able to guess (use a mixture of upper and lower case letters, plus numbers)
- Delete old accounts on random websites that you don’t use anymore, so your info can’t be stolen from there instead
- You should also be aware that Yahoo would never ask for your password so anyone requesting that information claiming from the company should be treated with suspicion
- Users should also be wary of calls from anyone professing to be from well known technology companies or government departments asking for credit card numbers, passwords or other personal information
How do you change your password?
- Go to the Yahoo Account information page and then if on a mobile device tap the menu icon
- Then select the Account Security section
- Click on the Change Password option
- Enter a new password and then re-enter it to confirm the password
- Click continue and then when a conformation window appears click continue again to finish.
How do you delete your account?
If you have had enough completely and wish to delete your account rather than try to secure it again, here's how to do that:
- Open your internet browser and put "edit.yahoo.com/config/delete_user" into the address bar
- Sign into your account as normal
- The webpage will then leap to a page titled "Terminating your Yahoo! Account"
- Check your Yahoo ID is the correct information and read the information there detailing the consequences of deleting the account
- If you wish to continue you should input your password again and then fill in a verification code.
- Then click on the button labelled "Terminating this Account" underneath the word "yes"
- You will then see a page titled "Yahoo Account Terminated" which will inform you that the account has been deactivated and scheduled for deletion
- You will now not be able to enter this account and it will be permanently deleted in about three months time
