Yahoo Hacked: 500 Million Affected After Data Breach — Is Your Info Safe? – Hollywood Life

Yahoo Hacked: How To Find Out If Your Data Was Stolen

Uh oh! Yahoo revealed on Sept. 22 that there was a MASSIVE hack back in 2014, and they just figured it out now! That means hackers had tons of time to use the stolen info of up to 500 MILLION accounts. Yikes! Find out if yours was affected, right here.

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Yahoo Hacked
Image Credit: Courtesy of Yahoo

This is CRAZY! On Sept. 22 it was revealed that Yahoo has suffered a major hack. “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,” a statement revealed. So what was stolen? “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.”

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Luckily, a lot of sensitive info was found to be safe, like “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.” Yahoo revealed that a whopping 500 million people had account info stolen, but they don’t appear to be in Yahoo’s network anymore.

So can you find out if your info was stolen? “Yahoo is notifying potentially affected users and has taken steps to secure their accounts,” Yahoo explained. So basically, keep an eye on your inbox and you’ll find out if you were affected. However, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. If you’re a Yahoo user, here are some steps to keep your info safe:

1. If you haven’t changed your password since 2014, do it now.

2. Check for suspicious activity.

3. Change security questions/answers.

4. Change password to any other accounts you have that used the same password as Yahoo.

5. Don’t click links or download attachments from sketchy emails, or send personal info to randos.

6. “Consider using Yahoo Account Key, a simple authentication tool that eliminates the need to use a password altogether.”

HollywoodLifers, were you affected by the hack? Share your thoughts with us!