"We confirm that an older file from Yahoo! Contributor Network (previously Associated Content) containing approximately 400,000 Yahoo! and other company users names and passwords was stolen yesterday, July 11," the company said in a statement to CNBC.
Of the stolen passwords, however, less than five percent of the Yahoo accounts had valid passwords, the company said in the statement.
The company is fixing the vulnerability and changing passwords of affected Yahoo users. It is also notifying companies whose accounts may of been compromised, according to the statement.
A previously unknown hacker group first posted online the details of 450,000 user accounts and passwords it said it had taken from a Yahoo server.
The Ars Technica technology news website reported that the group, which calls itself D33DS Company, hacked into an unidentified subdomain of Yahoo's [YHOO 15.7299 -0.0701 (-0.44%) ] website where they retrieved unencrypted account details.
The affected accounts appeared to belong to a voice-over-Internet-protocol, or VOIP, service called Yahoo Voices, which runs on Yahoo's instant messenger. The Voices service is powered by Jajah, a VOIP platform that was bought by Telefonica Europe BV in 2010.
The hackers' website where the original claim was made, d33ds.co, was not available later on Thursday. It was registered in February. Industry website CNET reported the hackers as saying the breach was intended as a "wake-up call and not as a threat" and that Yahoo's security was lax.
The Voices hack is one of several in recent months. The business networking service LinkedIn admitted last month that 6.4 million member passwords had been stolen from its website.
Source: cnbc.com Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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This is serious! I think this is indeed a wake-up call for yahoo! How safe are people now,especially with internet banking?.
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