Yahoo to pay $50M to data breach victims, will add credit monitoring
Yahoo, which was acquired by Verizon in 2017, has agreed to pay $50 million and provide free credit monitoring services to reimburse roughly 200 million users impacted by its 2013 data breach, which ranks among the most extensive hacks in history.
Under the proposed settlement, Yahoo would pay $25 per hour to users who suffered damages in relation to the data breach, such as a stolen identity or a delayed tax return. Affected users are eligible for up to $125 or $375 each, depending on whether they can document their losses.
Users with premium, subscription-based accounts can seek a 25 percent refund for the service. The two years of free credit monitoring will be provided through AllClear.
The proposal is subject to approval from a federal court in California. The settlement would apply to roughly one billion user accounts affected in the breach, which belonged to about 200 million people.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 29.
Victims of the data breach sued Yahoo in federal court, alleging that the company failed to properly disclose weaknesses in its email system that were later exploited during the data breach. The breaches occurred in 2013 and 2014, but were not publicly disclosed until 2016.
Yahoo initially said that about 1 billion accounts were impacted, but later revised that figure to 3 billion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
