Pre-reading questions:
- Do you have an email account?
- How long have you been using your email account?
- How important is security in email accounts?
Over one billion Yahoo accounts had been compromised in the hacking incident in 2013. Account owners’ personal data including phone numbers, passwords, security questions, and backup email addresses were illegally acquired in the process. It is considered the biggest data breach on the record. The stolen data had been for sale on the dark web, but since the incident had been disclosed to the public, the price was expected to decline.
Investigators pointed the finger at Group E— a group of cybercriminals based in Eastern Europe. Dropbox, Tumblr and VK.com. were previously attacked by the same group. Hackers could pretend as a friend or business using hacked accounts to phish for more personal information. Andrew Komarov, chief intelligence officer at InfoArmor, explained that Group E could gain by selling acquired data through hacking to spammers and other parties.
Vocabulary:
compromise – to expose something to risk or danger, to damage or weaken something
breach – infraction or violation of the law
dark web – a term used for a collection of websites that cannot be easily accessed by a normal browser
acquire – to get something
phish – to request confidential information over the internet or over the phone under false pretenses in order to deceitfully obtain credit card numbers, passwords and other personal data
Comprehension Questions:
- How many Yahoo accounts had been compromised last 2013 hacking incident?
- What were the details illegally acquired by the hackers in the process?
- What group was responsible for the incident, according to investigators?
- Why are these hackers dangerous?
Express Your Opinion:
- Providing sensitive information (e.g. credit card details, account passwords, personal data) in the internet.
- There is no safe place in the world wide web as long as there are sneaky hackers lurking.
- There is no safe place in the world wide web as long as there are sneaky hackers lurking.