Yahoo Admits Data Breach Impacted All of Its 3B Users

Today’s topics include Yahoo’s disclosure that all 3 billion of its users were affected by its data breach; Equifax’s announcement of an additional 2.5 million users impacted by its data breach; the release of Jigsaw within Java 9; and Microsoft ending Groove Music Pass and directing users to Spotify.

Yahoo, now part of Verizon's Oath business unit, publicly disclosed on Oct. 3 that information on all 3 billion of its users was stolen by attackers in a data breach back in August 2013. The 3 billion estimate is a dramatic increase from the 1 billion figure provided by Yahoo last December.

Verizon, which acquired Yahoo on June 13, said in a statement that it "is committed to the highest standards of accountability and transparency, and [it] proactively works to ensure the safety and security of [its] users and networks in an evolving landscape of online threats."

At the same time, “[Yahoo’s new disclosure] is certainly not a surprise," Peter Tran, general manager and senior director at RSA Security, told eWEEK. "Any breach at this scale is highly sophisticated and complex,” he said.

Equifax also announced this week that more users than initially reported were impacted by its data breach. The company announced on Oct. 2 that the forensic investigation of its data breach has revealed that an additional 2.5 million Americans were impacted, bringing the total to 145.5 million impacted Americans.

While the number of impacted U.S. consumers is higher than originally reported, the number of Canadian consumers impacted by the breach is actually significantly lower than initial reports—just 8,000 instead of the previously estimated 100,000.

According to Equifax, the completed forensic review by Mandiant found no evidence of attackers gaining access to databases located outside of the United States.

Version 9 of the Java Platform Standard Edition is now generally available. "That means that Jigsaw is here," Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle said.

Project Jigsaw, established after Oracle’s September 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, is an effort to turn Java into a more modular stack, including a module subsystem to help make the programming language more efficient. "We set out to solve two fundamental problems in the Java platform," Reinhold said. "One is the brittle and error prone Classpath; the other is the massive and monolithic JDK."

Thanks to Jigsaw, Java 9 is now a modular system that replaces Classpath as a more optimized, developer-intuitive model to specify package and library locations. When Java ARchive files are used, the modular system guarantees reliable configuration and strong encapsulation to developers when compiling or running code that can't even be expressed in the Classpath system.

On Dec. 31, Microsoft is pulling the plug on Groove Music Pass, the software maker's entry into a music streaming market dominated by the likes of Pandora and Spotify.

To help users cope with the impending shutdown, Microsoft is expanding its "partnership with Spotify to bring the world's largest music streaming service to … Groove Music Pass customers," said Jerry Johnson, general manager of Microsoft Groove. "Groove Music Pass customers can easily move all their curated playlists and collections directly into Spotify," he assured.

Some users may also be entitled to a 60-day Spotify Premium free trial. Groove Music Pass users will be able to move their content until at least Jan. 31, 2018, and prorated refunds will be issued to those who prepaid for subscriptions starting at the service's Dec. 31 shutdown date or wish to cancel before then.