If You Had a Yahoo Account in 2013, You Were Hacked
“Sitting down? An epic and historic data breach at Yahoo in August 2013 affected every single customer account that existed at the time, Yahoo parent company Verizon said on Tuesday… ” CNN Money
A recent admission by Verizon (new owner of Yahoo and now known as Oath), raises the number of people hacked in 2013 from 1 billion to nearly 3 billion. That means that every one who had a Yahoo account in August 2013 was hacked. Verizon, Yahoo’s new parent company says “likely hacked”, but careful wording does not change the facts.
The latest revelation raises the number of accounts hacked from 1 billion to 3 billion. Yahoo admitted to 1 billion when it first announced the hacking. But now the company admits that virtually everyone who had a Yahoo account in August 2013 was hacked.
According to Verizon’s announcement yesterday, October 3, 2017, hackers in the 2013 data breach stole names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, passwords along with security questions and answers. But, says Verizon, no need to worry. In late 2016, it made all Yahoo users change account passwords and security questions and answers.
We wonder what happened during the intervening 3+ years? And what happened to Yahoo account holders who sent or received emails containing bank account numbers or credit card numbers? Yahoo/Oath says no credit card numbers were stolen, but we know for a fact that people send credit card number via email – as risky and inadvisable as that is. (We caution you again – never send credit card numbers, social security numbers, or financial account numbers via email.)
No one will ever be able to measure the depth and scope of this breach. Three billion is a lot of accounts and a lot of personal information. It’s amazing that anyone would ever even consider trusting Yahoo again – or even have a Yahoo account.
We continue to learn more and more about the scope of this breach, and we don’t believe the whole truth has come out yet. If you’re using a Yahoo account, you should give serious consideration to cancelling it. Get a Google account. If you don’t like Google, get an Outlook.com account. But if you take our advice, you’ll get as far away from Yahoo as you can as quickly as you can.
In case you want to take us up on our advice, here’s how to cancel your Yahoo account.
Canadians living on Ontario and using Rogers as their ISP had/have no choice and cancelling the Yahoo account is meaningless since Rogers is the ISP regardless of what email account one uses as it goes through their server anyhow. As a Rogers customer I have been complaining about this to no avail since they first joined with Yahoo.
The ISP does not determine the Email provider unless you choose to use the ISP’s email service. If you use Gmail or Outlook.com, you’ll accesst them via the Internet connection provided by your ISP, but your ISP has nothing to do with Gmail’s or Outlook.com’s services. If you switch to a Gmail or Outlook.com account you won’t be affected no matter what happens to Rogers.com or Yahoo. Your ISP provides your internet connection but you do not have to use their email service.
Likewise with AT&T, in the U. S.
AT&T is your internet provider. They do not have to be your email provider.
Our ISP is AT&T who as far as I can tell gives you only the choice of Yahoo so if you cancel Yahoo what can AT@T do about it to that consumer . We get our E-Mail now by Thunder Bird so does that protect us from Yahoo .
No, Thunderbird is an email program not a provider. As long as you use an sbcglobal.net (AT&T) address that uses Yahoo servers, it’s the same as using Yahoo. You can use Gmail or Outlook.com in Thunderbird – so you’re not beholden to AT&T for email.