Yahoo Looks to Settle Huge Data Breach with $118M Payment

Yahoo Looks to Settle Huge Data Breach with $118M Payment

In 2017, Yahoo announced that the huge data breach in August 2013 affected every user on its service. That’s all three billion user accounts they had at the time. The hack exposed user account information, which includes name, email address, hashed passwords, birthdays, phone numbers, and, in some cases, “encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers,” the company said.

Lawsuits have been filed over the data breach and Yahoo is now looking to settle by paying just $117.5 million. That’s about 4 cents per account. The proposed settlement was announced on Tuesday, but still needs to be approved by US District Judge Lucy Koh. This is the second settlement attempt, after earlier in the year the same judge said he wanted to see more benefits to consumers and a specific settlement amount.

In 2016, Verizon acquired Yahoo for $4.48 billion. The following year, Yahoo and AOL formed a new company under Verizon called Oath. It has since been rebranded to Verizon Media. “We believe that the settlement demonstrates our strong commitment to security,” a Verizon Media spokesperson told CNN Business. Since June 2017, Yahoo’s parent company has boosted its security budget, increased the number of employees in its information security group and enhanced training, policies and procedures related to security, according to court documents.

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