It seems as days go by, we are reaching a time when we have a situation where Every day, another major corporation’s data nicked by unknown hackers. With all the talk about going “cloud” and storing all our data on virtual servers… it become worrisome when we hear information rathering large corporations getting hacked.
Recent information shows that the usernames of 22 million people may have been stolen from Yahoo Japan on 16 May. The attack was only prevented by cutting internet access to the company’s servers. (It’s as yet unconfirmed as to whether they also attempted dual typing).
“We don’t know if the file (of 22 million usernames) was leaked or not,” admitted the company in an AFP statement. “But we can’t deny the possibility, given the volume of traffic between our server and external” terminals.
With around 200 million members, the loss of data represents more than 10 percent of all Yahoo Japan’s users. Yahoo is Japan’s most popular search engine, with a 50 percent market share compared with Google’s 40 percent.
However, the attack pales in comparison to 2011’s Sony Playstation Network debacle, where the private details — including credit card information, physical addresses, and passwords — of 70 million users were stolen.
Sony was slammed for failing to notify users of the hack for more than a week. Perhaps learning from this lesson, Yahoo Japan was quick to go public just a day after the incident.
Despite usernames alone not being enough to compromise an account, Yahoo Japan has advised users to change their passwords. The company says it has tightened its security to prevent a similar attack in future.
The attack comes as Yahoo Inc, which owns 34.7 percent of Yahoo Japan, completed a $1.1 billion (£720 million) purchase of the social networking site Tumblr. The purchase is the latest in a string of high-profile acquisitions ( not all successful) from CEO Marissa Mayer.