Yahoo is looking into a claim that 200 million of its user accounts have been breached, and that the information — which includes usernames and hashed passwords — is being sold on the dark web. A hacker known as Peace, known for selling data from previous LinkedIn and MySpace hacks, is now selling data of supposed Yahoo users for three bitcoins, or about $1,860. “Our security team is working to determine the facts,” a Yahoo spokeswoman said in an email Tuesday. She did not address SiliconBeat’s question about whether the company has determined if the information that’s been put up for sale belongs to active Yahoo accounts. Motherboard, which first reported the purported breach, said it had determined from a sample that some of the information corresponded with Yahoo accounts, but that some of the addresses didn’t appear to be working. The hashed/scrambled passwords can be figured out because the hacker also published the algorithm that was used to create the hashes. Peace told Motherboard that the data was “from 2012 most likely.” In 2012, hackers posted online the passwords of 6.5 million LinkedIn members, and the professional networking site — and by extension, other sites and some famous people — continue to be affected to this day. What’s a Yahoo user to do while the company investigates? Well, Yahoo said “we always encourage our users to create strong passwords, or give up passwords altogether by using Yahoo Account Key, and use different passwords for different platforms.” Photo: Yahoo Mail on a computer screen. (Bay Area News Group archives) Tags: breach, hack, linkedin, MySpace, Yahoo
Yahoo is investigating a claim about a security breach in which 200 million of its user accounts have been hacked and sold on the dark web. The company said it was working with law enforcement to investigate the breach. This hacker, the notorious internet criminal peace_of_mind, was behind the recent sale of stolen data belonging to LinkedIn and MySpace and has a long successful selling history, which computer security experts say makes the claim regarding Yahoo believable.