Yahoo Japan Warns 22m Customers Over ID Theft

The Japanese division of Yahoo has warned that information on 22 million users may have been stolen.

Yahoo experienced an attack on its admin the admin system for its Japan portal, and said it “can’t deny the possibility [that the attack was successful] given the volume of traffic between our server and external terminals”, according to the AFP.

Yahoo attacked

Thankfully for users, it appears passwords were not taken, but the company still urged users to change their login details. The attack was spotted on 16 May.

The company, which is jointly owned by telecoms firm Softbank and Yahoo, says it has taken actions to shore up security to prevent a repeat of the incident. Yahoo is the most popular search engine in Japan, just ahead of Google.

Yahoo is a regular target for cyber criminals. In July last year, 450,000 passwords were posted online, an event made worse by the fact the company was storing passwords unencrypted. It was later sued by one of its users over the breach.

In January, it turned out an attempt to cover a security hole in Yahoo Mail failed, leaving the door open to hackers hoping to completely take over a victim’s account.

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