According to "The New York Times", the leak was put on sale in August on the deep internet for $ 300,000. There were three buyers: two were groups known to "spam" while the third appears to correspond to a foreign government interested in "hacking" officials from other nations.
The Massive hacking of Yahoo It is but one more step in what is known as the cyberwar in which it is convenient to be "armed." Not with the best bullets or tanks. But with the best information for attack infrastructures that are not protected, as has happened to the company chaired by Marissa Mayer. Proof of this is that lThe stolen data was put up for sale in August at the Deep weeb. And they were bought. The worst thing is that, in that leak, there were the personal data of high-level US officials, for which they have been paid $ 300,000.
As the newspaper published this Thursday, «The New York Times»The complete copy of the stolen data from more than 1 billion Yahoo accounts They went on sale at Deep Weeb last August. In fact, three buyers were identified.
Names, dates of birth, phone numbers, passwords, answers to security questions, and email addresses were perpetrated by cybercriminals thanks to the weak security that the company offered to users. This is very valuable information, especially "for a 'hacker' trying to break into government systems around the world: Millions of the addresses belonged to military and civil government employees of dozens of nations, including more than 150,000 Americans», Says the newspaper.
The chief intelligence officer of security firm InfoArmor, Andrew Komarov, explains to "The New York Times" that found the stolen database on the Deep Web with all personal information. It should be remembered that the Deep Web or "deep internet" is the hidden part of the Internet, which is not part of the superficial internet and is invisible to search engines because the content is not indexed.
According to the newspaper, in August, a 'geographically dispersed collective of cybercriminals, based in Eastern Europe', began offering the entire database for sale. Three buyers they were postulated: two were groups known for spamming while the third, according to Komarov, seems to correspond to a foreign government interested in "hacking" officials of other nations. Each of them paid around $ 300,000.
This third buyer, according to the newspaper, could have put as a condition that proofs be delivered to him that in the database he was going to buy, in which there were email accounts of high-level officials of the United States, among which would be agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), advisers to the White House and even the National Security Agency (NSA). Once the verification by the "hackers" was made, the purchase was made.
Komarov has assured that his company obtained a copy of the leaked database and in recent months alerted the military and police authorities of the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the European Union about the violation. He never notified Yahoo because his relations with the company are not good but also because doubted that the "hack" would be fully investigated in full negotiations with Verizon.
The attack, which Yahoo disclosed on Wednesday, is the largest known data breach of a company. The problem is that the company did not know that it had been the victim of the theft until, as it reminds the newspaper, the police authorities showed up at its headquarters with samples of the pirated data from an undisclosed source.
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