Breaking News out of Yahoo! The company confirms that as many as 500 million data accounts were breached by a hacker in a huge data breach. Information obtained through the data breach may have included names, email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers, and possibly even encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. Yahoo! believes that the hack is the result of a state sponsored attack, but at this point information is scarce on all of that. However, regardless of the source, the data breach occurred, and here’s what you should attempt to do if you rely on Yahoo! for your email:
- In your browser, go to login.yahoo.com to access the login screen.
- Enter your login username, then click Next.
- Enter your existing password, then click Sign In.
- After you login, look near the top right of your browser for your name, hover over your name, then click on “Account Info“. I’ve linked that page in case you have any issues.
- On the left side of your screen, click on Account Security, then in the middle click on “Change password”.
- Enter your new password, type it again to verify it, then click “Continue”.
- After you change your password, you will receive an indication that it has been updated. Click “Continue” to proceed.
Keep in mind, if you access your Yahoo! account from any other devices, such as automatically on your phone, you need to update the password on those devices or you will lock yourself out.
Any questions? Reach out to us and we’ll be happy to help! Just contact us via email, or you can give us a call at 919-606-6725, leave us a comment below, or even send us a Facebook message or a Tweet!
Account security is a big priority for all of us, so it’s important that we all do our part to keep our online presence safe and secure!
Yahoo began investigating a possible breach in July, around the time the tech site Motherboard reported that a hacker who uses the name “Peace” was trying to sell account information belonging to 200 million Yahoo users.