As far as data breaches go, the one that hit Yahoo back in 2014 was a doozy. When the dust settled, Yahoo revealed that hackers managed to abscond with sensitive information and credentials from upwards of 500 million users.
At the time, the company said it believed a state-sponsored group was behind the attack, and that some of the information obtained during the course of the breach included “names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with [password hashing function] bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions answers.”
Of course, with Yahoo being Yahoo, the company was also impacted by any number of other security breaches over the past few years.
With that said, if you happened to be a Yahoo user impacted by a significant data breach, there’s a chance you might be entitled to $100, or even more. Of course, with so many people potentially impacted by a data breach, the odds of any one person getting $100 hinges on how many people actually go through the requisite paperwork.
Incidentally, Yahoo notes that the $100 figure could be less or as high as $358.08 depending on how many people file claims. Incidentally, Yahoo is also offering two years of free credit monitoring for impacted individuals.
Yahoo’s claim form reads in part:
If you are a Settlement Class Member, you may make a claim for a minimum of two years of Credit Monitoring Services at no cost to you by filling out this Claim Form. Credit Monitoring Services are designed to help protect you from possible unlawful use of your personal information that was potentially compromised as a result of the Yahoo Data Breaches. Credit Monitoring Services will provide you with alerts if someone is unlawfully using your personal information, and other valuable identity protection services. Credit Monitoring Services will only be provided once per person, rather than once per account.
If you can verify that you already have credit monitoring or identity protection services that you will keep for at least 12 months, you may instead make a claim for a cash payment in an amount of $100, although that amount may be less or more up to $358.80, depending on how many claims are submitted.
As it stands now, Yahoo’s settlement fund is worth $117.5 million, with the company noting that individuals in the United States or Israel who used Yahoo accounts between 2012 and 2016 are eligible for compensation.
Eligible users will need to file by July 2020.
