Well, Yahoo’s much in the news again. Once again, as noted by the New York Times, “Yahoo Says 1 Billion User Accounts Were Hacked.”
The newly disclosed 2013 attack involved sensitive user information, including names, telephone numbers, dates of birth, encrypted passwords and unencrypted security questions that could be used to reset a password. Yahoo said it is forcing all of the affected users to change their passwords and it is invalidating unencrypted security questions — steps that it declined to take in September.
Changing Yahoo passwords will be just the start for many users. They will also have to comb through other services to make sure passwords used on those sites are not too similar to what they were using on Yahoo. And if they were not doing so already, they will have to treat everything they receive online, such as email, with an abundance of suspicion, in case hackers are trying to trick them out of even more information.
See also:
How Yahoo’s 1 billion account breach stacks up with the biggest hacks ever
What you should do if you were hit by the Yahoo hack
What to do? In summary: Check that you can access your account and email. Login into your Yahoo account. Make sure there’s nothing strange. Check your account / personal info. Change your password. Choose a strong password. Don’t use the same password as for other accounts.
And if you’re no longer using the account, then delete or deactivate it. Get a free Google account and use Gmail.