Attack the data of Yahoo may have been “sponsored by a State” – RTP

Sandra Salvado – RTP 23 Sep, 2016, 11:40 / updated on 23 Sep, 2016, 13:25 | Technology

This event is already considered to be the biggest cyber attack revealed publicly. The Yahoo encourages users to change their passwords and security questions with urgency.

On Thursday, the company reported that about 500 million of its users were exposed to a cyber attack, which happened in 2014, and that the various personal information has been stolen by those responsible for that attack.

Yahoo says now that the attack may have been “sponsored by a State”, without, however, advancing more details. And he adds that “the intrusions online, and the theft by the actors sponsored by States is becoming increasingly common in the the technology industry".

the agency Reuters argue that three high officials of the the community of the secret services of the United States believe that the the attack was sponsored by a State because it was at all similar to the previous cyber-attacks linked to the secret services of Russia.
Suspicious on the “dark web”
The first suspicions arose in August, when a hacker known as “Peace” tried to sell the information of 200 million accounts, Yahoo. At the same time circulated the news that the data of millions of accounts, e-mail of Yahoo would be on sale on "dark web", the internet outside of the search engines.

note that the multinational, which has one billion users monthly, was acquired in July by the giant telecommunications Verizon, for 4.8 billion dollars.

The criticism for delay in detection and confirmation of this attack does not stop growing, but the company guarantees that the data of credit cards of the customers were not stolen. However, the FBI has confirmed that is investigating this cyber attack, refers to the BBC.
Breach of security, and concern
“it Is too worrying that a security breach of 2014 may have been for detect so much time,” said Alan Woordward, specialist at the University of Surrey, quoted by the BBC.

And he added: “it Is also surprising that a public announcement has taken so long to appear. Would depart from the principle that the majority of the companies already had time to learn, that the sooner you learn the better, even if they have to go updating what you know. I can understand a delay of a few days to confirm if a security breach is genuine, since it is increasingly common to be information of false data, but six weeks seems too long."

Verizon has justified that as soon as I learned of the cyber attack, the information was very limited. “We will make assessments as the investigation moves forward with the general interests of Verizon safeguarded, including consumers, customers, shareholders and communities related (…) Until then, we are not in a position to make further comment,” said the company in a statement.

Yahoo has launched even some alerts to its users, pointing out tips and security measures, which you can see here in full.
safety Recommendations
- Change the passwords, especially if they were made before 2014;
– Change the questions and answers of passwords, including other services, if they are the same ones used in Yahoo;
– Avoid clicking on links or download attachments from suspicious e-mails;
-Choose passwords that are "strong", safe, and change them at the first sign of a problem;
– Update the antivirus and the operating system
– Be careful with links in instant messages and social networks
– Attention to the fake emails that are still very common
– Be careful with email attachments

“The Yahoo will likely come under intense scrutiny from regulators, the media and the public, and with reason,” said Nikki Parker, vice-president of the company’s cyber security Covata, quoted by the BBC.

This officer said that, “big companies can’t get away from data breaches, and must show that they are committed to the resolution of the problems. Hopefully the ink is already dry on the contract with Verizon,” added Nikki Parker, referring to the business closed two months ago.

according to the BBC, and to the scale of this attack, this is the most comprehensive violation of the cyber security of large enterprises, in recent years, including the cases of data theft from MySpace (359 million users), LinkedIn (164 million), or Adobe (152 million).