Yahoo! 1B breach sounds death knell for passwords

Media note: December 15, 2016

Yahoo! 1B breach sounds death knell for passwords

Centrify Senior Director Products and Marketing Corey Williams has warned Yahoo! users to “buckle up” after news that details from more than one billion Yahoo! accounts were hacked in 2013 - reportedly the largest data breach in history!

“It turns out the largest data breach in history, of 500 million Yahoo! accounts in 2014, is actually only half the size of the new largest hack now discovered – one billion Yahoo! accounts in 2013,” he said. Visit https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/12/yahoo-one-billion-more-accounts-hacked/ for more details on the data breach.

“Whether you stay with Yahoo! or switch to another provider, my advice is the same: Fasten your ‘cyber safety belt’ by turning on Multi-Factor Authentication to better protect your online security.

“During the past few decades, most car users have come to accept seat belts as an essential safety measure. ‘Buckle-up’ education campaigns have proved highly effective. Maybe the impact of this large-scale event will serve to raise awareness about the inadequacy of the common password and to introduce the ‘cyber safety belt’ — Multi-Factor Authentication.

“The bottom line is that Yahoo! is simply not safe to use unless you turn on Yahoo Account Key or another Multi-Factor Authentication solution.”

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) grants access only after successfully presenting more than one “factor” to an authentication mechanism – typically something we know e.g. password or passcode; something we have e.g. an ATM card or security token, or something we are e,g, biometrics.

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About Centrify www.centrify.com

Centrify is the leader in securing enterprise identities against cyberthreats that target today’s hybrid IT environment of cloud, mobile and on-premises. The Centrify Identity Platform protects against the leading point of attack used in data breaches compromised credentials — by securing an enterprise’s internal and external users as well as its privileged accounts. Centrify delivers stronger security, continuous compliance and enhanced user productivity through single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, mobile and Mac management, privileged access security and session monitoring. Centrify is trusted by over 5000 customers, including more than half of the Fortune 50 in the US.
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