{"id":123,"date":"2016-12-15T08:11:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T14:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pcmdx.net\/blog\/?p=123"},"modified":"2016-12-15T10:58:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T16:58:37","slug":"how-the-massive-yahoo-breach-could-affect-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pcmdx.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/15\/how-the-massive-yahoo-breach-could-affect-you\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Massive Yahoo Breach Could Affect You."},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 14, 2016 Yahoo revealed that 1,000,000,000<\/a> (that’s 1 billion) user accounts had been compromised in 2013, a year before they reported another breach that affected 500 million user accounts.<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s 1.5 billion accounts that were hacked. \u00a0A company that employs 13,600 people in their IT department was hacked and user accounts from enough people to equal the population of North America, South America, Central America, Australia, Russia, Germany, and a few smaller nations, were compromised.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Yahoo engineer in server farm.<\/p><\/div>\n

Why would hackers be so interested in the e-mail accounts of all these people? \u00a0They’re not. \u00a0Just like they are not interested in the Chicken Stamp accounts that were breached recently at KFC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what are they after? \u00a0Lax password security by those Yahoo and KFC account users. \u00a0If you’re like many people, you’ll use your e-mail account as a user name for most, if not all, of the web sites you frequent. \u00a0And if you’re like most users, you also use the same password for most of these sites.<\/p>\n

By the way, Yahoo and KFC aren’t the only companies that have been hacked. \u00a0Our sister site, DontBecomeAnotherTarget.com<\/a> keeps track of all major breaches.<\/p>\n

So suddenly those Chicken Stamp accounts and those e-mail accounts begin to have more value, especially if those same user names and passwords are used at financial sites.<\/p>\n

Some security sites are recommending<\/a> that if you have a Yahoo account, it’s time to close it, including if you have an account that Yahoo administers (@att.net, @bellsouth.net<\/strong>). \u00a0You also need to change all of your passwords that are similar to your Yahoo\/.att.net\/.bellsouth.net.<\/strong>\u00a0Now<\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0And you need to begin to practice safe\u00a0online behavior.<\/p>\n

What’s safe online behavior? \u00a0It’s<\/p>\n