Yahoo's 'state-sponsored' cyber hack mounts up to be largest ever

Yahoo is certainly not the first major company to be hacked but it is definitely the biggest.

In a report by Statista pointed out that many high-profile companies have been subject to hacker attacks recently, among which, Yahoo holds the most weightage.

The data breach had occurred two years ago but the company only recently realised the full impact of the attack.

Half a billion users (500 million) had their names, email addresses, birth dates, and scrambled passwords, along with encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers that could help hackers break into victims’ other 
online accounts, the company said in a release dated September 22.

Yahoo had earlier reports had suggested only 200 million accounts had been affected by the attack, however this ballpark was underestimated by the company.

Yahoo data did not include unprotected passwords or information associated with payments or bank accounts, AFP stated in a report.

In 2016, social networking site, MySpace also had its platform compromised with having affected 427 million users, which is the second biggest attack till date, Statista stated.

The platform allows its users to interact with user-submitted network of friends, access personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos.

You will find more statistics at Statista

LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking service, with 117 million users being affected was a third site in 2016 to have its platform compromised.

Other websites like VK, Dropbox and Tumblr were also reported on security breaches this year.