If you have a Yahoo! email (or any other Yahoo! account) you should change your password as soon as possible.
Last week it was revealed that a file containing approximately Yahoo! 450,000 email addresses and passwords was compromised and posted online by a hacking group known as D33D Company.
Yahoo! say that they have taken swift action and have now fixed this vulnerability, deployed additional security measures for affected Yahoo! users, enhanced our underlying security controls and are in the process of notifying affected users. They also remind everyone of their security advice available in the Yahoo! Security Center.
It’s also rumoured that a number Gmail, Hotmail and other addresses were included in the file, and that there was no encryption so email addresses and their corresponding passwords were in plain text.
It appears that the compromised file was a standalone file that was not used to grant access to Yahoo! systems and services and dated from May 2010 at the latest, so if you routinely change your password you should be safe. However we’d recommend that you update all your online webmail passwords to be certain no one can access your accounts.
