All 3 billion accounts were affected in the 2013 Yahoo hack
Way back in 2013, Yahoo experienced a security breach where hackers gained access to over 500 million accounts. Yahoo later upgraded that estimate to more than 1 billion accounts, yet today the company released yet another press statement admitting that all 3 billion Yahoo accounts at the time of existence in 2013 were impacted.
The reveal of 1 billion hacked accounts happened late last year in December and it was enough that Verizon was considering backing out of its acquisition deal, which was worth $4.83 billion at the time. Yahoo says that in connection with the December 2016 announcement, they took action to protect all accounts by requiring users to change their passwords and invalidating unencrypted security questions so they couldn’t be used to gain access to these accounts.
While the hack occurred years ago, if you’ve re-used any passwords that were associated with your Yahoo account, it’s best to change them immediately. If you’re curious if your email was impacted in this breach, the website HaveIBeenPwned.com keeps track of all leaks across major corporations so you can see if your email addresses have been impacted.
If you want an easy way to keep track of the hundreds of different passwords required in today’s modern world, check out our guide to password managers on Android.