Yahoo Data Breach

What happened?

In July 2012, Yahoo! had their online publishing service "Voices" compromised via a SQL injection attack. The breach resulted in the disclosure of nearly half a million usernames and passwords stored in plain text. The breach showed that of the compromised accounts, a staggering 59% of people who also had accounts in the Sony breach reused their passwords across both services .

When did it happen?

The breach date in the public record is July 11, 2012. The record was added to the catalogue on December 4, 2013 and last updated there on December 4, 2013.

What information was reported as exposed?

• Email addresses
• Passwords

These are incident-level categories. The record does not prove that every category was exposed for every affected person.

Who may be affected?

This record may be relevant to people who had an account or other relationship with Yahoo or used yahoo.com around July 11, 2012. A catalogue entry does not establish that every customer was affected or that every listed data category applied to each person. Compare the record with an official notice addressed to you.

What should you do?

Choose actions that match the information involved. If you find signs that someone is using your identity, the Federal Trade Commission provides a personal recovery plan at IdentityTheft.gov.