Monday, July 16, 2012

Yahoo password theft -- Consequences and threats

Yahoo has reportedly fixed the security blemish that provided hackers an access to passwords of almost 450,000 users. Yahoo confirmed it through its blogpost on Friday (July 13).

Yahoo password theft -- Consequences and threats


According to the referred blogpost:

Yahoo! revealed that the data of those users were compromised who were registered members of Associated Content prior to May 2010, when it was acquired by Yahoo! and presently known as Yahoo! Contributor Network.

“We have taken swift action and have now fixed this vulnerability, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, enhanced our underlying security controls and are in the process of notifying affected users.  In addition, we will continue to take significant measures to protect our users and their data,” the blogpost revealed further.

Apart from Yahoo’s efforts to counter the hackers’ attack experts think that inter-linked ID’s might also be on risk because Yahoo Contributor Network facilitates users to sign in through a Yahoo, Google or Facebook ID.  This means that if you use log in to any user service provided by Yahoo via any other ID such as Gmail or Facebook, you should also change your password for that account as it could have been compromised.

According to earlier reports, a hacker group dubbed as D33DS Company, broke into an undisclosed subdomain of Yahoo’s website where they recovered unencrypted account details and then posted these details online.

The Yahoo hacking is the second biggest so far this year; after LinkedIn was hacked earlier this year restricted almost 6 million users to lose access to their accounts.  While insufficient tech security provided by these Internet giants are a major cause of concern, the substandard and ordinary passwords chosen by users are also contributed to such disasters. 

According to an online analysis by CNET, that passwords of more than 2,200 of hacked accounts were “123456″ and 780 of the passwords were just “password.”

Report Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo!, Yahoo Inc., CNET, Yahoo Hacked, Yahoo accounts hacked, D33DS Company, Hacking, Yahoo Contributor Network, Associated Content

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