In the second paragraph of a blog post announced on Thursday, Yahoo states, that an attack yielded a list of usernames and passwords for Yahoo-based email accounts and sought the names and addresses to which that account had most recently sent messages.
The company announced that they are resetting password of those compromised accounts to protect those yahoo accounts but your security effort should at least begin there. They infer that the “hack” effort came through a third-party database and not Yahoo’s own systems. We also know that the Feds are involved to find those responsible for the attack. We aren’t sure of much else at this time. What else if anything did the hackers gain access too?
If you believe your Yahoo account may have been hacked we recommend that you take the following steps.
- Immediately change your password,
- Update your security questions and ensure your Yahoo! Mobile and Y! Messenger are both up-to-date.
- If you share that password with other sites, changes those to a separate password now as well.
Optional recommendations.
- Create your Yahoo! sign-in seal to protect yourself from password theft and phishing
- Activate second sign-in verification to protect your account
- View your recent login activity: https://api.login.yahoo.com/login/history?.scrumb=POTJLYmN0tP
- You should also visit Yahoo! Email Abuse Help
- Use this process if you are unable to login to your Yahoo! account.
Other Tips
What to do if someone has recently accessed your account?
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/login-activity-sln2073.html
Safeguarding your account.
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN2080.html
Abuse or spam for yahoo
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=topics&y=PROD_ACCT&locale=en_US&topics=TOP_ABS&actp=lorax
Related articles
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/31/yahoo-email-accounts-hacked-company-mum-specifics/
http://yahoo.tumblr.com/post/75083532312/important-security-update-for-yahoo-mail-users
