Users who insist on keeping their Yahoo account safe will do well to pay close attention to the news below. Yahoo has once again informed its users that the accounts they may have been compromised by hackers believed to have used fake cookies instead of passwords.
The issue was disclosed in a November 2016 SEC filing, but considering the magnitude of the violations revealed by company in September and December, the former affecting 500 million accounts and the latter 1 billion accounts, the matter went largely unnoticed.
"Based on ongoing research, we believe that a counterfeit cookie may have been used in 2015 or 2016 to gain access to your account. We believe that the cookie activity is the responsibility of those who carried out the data theft that was announced on September 22, 2016, "says Yahoo today 's warning to users of its services.
According to the company, the security gap that allowed the use of fake cookies has been fixed, while Yahoo's systems have been made more secure so that users are safe from similar attacks. Of course, they reported the same for the latest breaches.
"The technical details of the fake cookie attacks are unclear, but it appears that Yahoo had some serious problems with its authentication mechanisms and managementof sessions. It is a good example of how a defect of a applications can cost millions. Yahoo certainly made the right decision to inform its users, however such a delay is neither justified nor condoned. It may trigger a class-action lawsuit against Yahoo,” CEO of security firm High-Tech Bridge Ilia Kolochenko told Softpedia.
If you are a Yahoo user and after all you want to continue using the service, change your password immediately.
If you are tired of the company with the continuous announcements of violations, please turn off your account.
To delete your account, you should be able to find the right link that is well hidden.
Yahoo will try to intimidate you by indicating that your profile account is linked to your email and Yahoo Messenger.
The company will then tell you how deleting your account will cause you to lose all your data across the Yahoo network. Please note that deleting your Yahoo account will result in your account being deleted on Flickr along with any photos you have stored there.
It takes about 90 days to completely delete your account. The last thing you need to do is type your password and CAPTCHA to terminate your account.
The link to your account is deleted as follows:
https://edit.yahoo.com/config/delete_user