Yahoo Confirms That 500 Million Accounts Were Stolen

Chances are, you're probably one of the 500 million people who had their Yahoo accounts stolen and recently compromised.

Early Thursday afternoon (Sept. 22), Yahoo confirmed that data “associated with at least 500 million user accounts" were stolen in what's said to be the largest data breach in history. They believe that the person responsible was acting on behalf of a government and that the breach occurred back in 2014.

"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," explained Yahoo in a statement.

Now don’t fret. Yahoo confirmed that despite peoples’ accounts being compromised, bank accounts and credit card information were not believed to be stolen. The F.B.I. has gotten involved to gather more information to help figure out how the breach occurred.

"The FBI is aware of the intrusion and investigating the matter," an FBI spokesperson said. "We take these types of breaches very seriously and will determine how this occurred and who is responsible. We will continue to work with the private sector and share information so they can safeguard their systems against the actions of persistent cyber criminals."

Yahoo has already been going through a difficult time these past couple of months, especially after being sold to Verizon for a colossal $4.83 billion this past July. The deal is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2017.