Yahoo is ordered to pay $50 million in damages, and will provide free credit monitoring to thousands of Americans and Israelis who were victims of the massive breach of the service that took place in 2013. On Monday, through a court order, Yahoo agreed to pay the amount.
The case stems from the largest data breach ever, where 3 billion accounts were compromised. The accounts represented more than 200 million people, and the attack came from hackers, some of whom were Russian.
As mentioned above, the breach occurred in 2013, but wasn't made public until 2016. The leaked user data included names, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers. The company, which is now owned by Verizon, claims that no credit card information or passwords were leaked.
In April, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) fined Yahoo $35 million for failing to inform its customers and investors in a reasonable timeframe.
It was also reported that those who had Yahoo accounts at the time and suffered any damage due to the breach can request up to $375 in compensation. However, there must be documented evidence that the leaked data was used.
In 2014, a year later, Yahoo fell victim to another breach that leaked data from 500 million accounts. This time, the data included encrypted and unencrypted passwords.
