Yahoo is said to face legal charges after more than 1 billion users information was leaked in a cyber attack. This includes names, emails, phone numbers, passwords and security questions. Yahoo was found guilty for being slow to disclose the attacks as it waited 3 years before revealing details about the first attack.
Readers of Cybersecurity Insiders have to notify over here that three data breaches occurred between 2013 and 2016 affecting millions of users.
So, based on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on behalf of more than 1 billion users, US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose pronounced a legal sentence on Wednesday that Yahoo must face legal charges for keeping data breach acts under wraps and for not following security standards to secure critical info of its valuable customers.
Thus, Verizon Communications Inc which acquired Yahoo witnessed a setback to limit potential liability with the latest legal pronouncement
Note- Due to the cyber attack, Yahoo offered a discount of $400 million to its potential buyer Verizon. And as a result of this discount, Verizon paid Yahoo only $4.4 billion instead of $4.76 billion.
As per the details available to the press from the US District San Jose, the August 2013 breach affected more than 1 billion accounts, while the 2014 breach affected more than 500 million and a third breach occurred in 2015 and 2016 for which the details of the victims are yet to be tabulated.
And as a result of the breach, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had to forgo her 2016 bonus worth $2 million and was also not granted her 2017 equity grants.
