Yahoo Admits Some Staff Knew About The 2014 Hack By A State-Sponsored Attacker

Some employees at Yahoo were aware of a recently disclosed major hacking incident when it occurred in 2014, the company revealed in a Securities and Exchange filing yesterday. The Financial Times reported that an investigation has been launched, to look into the “scope of the knowledge within the company in 2014” regarding the breach, which was announced six weeks ago. IT security experts from NSFOCUS and Comparitech.com commented below.

Stephen Gates, Chief Research Intelligence Analyst at NSFOCUS:

“From the recent keynote speeches in several cybersecurity conferences in the U.S., the audience learned that Yahoo had some serious internal cultural issues.  According to the keynotes, the employees responsible for securing Yahoo from cyberattacks were publicly called “The Paranoids” within the organisation itself.  If true, these types of findings lean one to believe that the highest ranking officers in the company are responsible for fostering this type of appalling culture, and should be held directly responsible for its result.”

Lee Munson, Security Researcher at Comparitech.com:

“Yahoo getting breached is unfortunate but, perhaps, understandable in the current climate when many companies are beginning to realise the question for them should be when, not if. The amount of accounts compromised at Yahoo was shocking, no two ways about it. The amount of time if took for the breach to be detected and become public knowledge was disturbing, especially coming as it did so soon after a similar situation at LinkedIn.

The fact that Yahoo staff knew of the breach at the time it occurred and kept quiet is completely and utterly unforgivable. Not only is it what appears to be a complete cover-up as the company continues merger talks with Verizon, it is also a huge slap in the face to half a billion customers who must now be wondering whether they can ever trust Yahoo again.”