After federal prosecutors unsealed indictments this week against four men they say were responsible for a 2014 intrusion into Yahoo’s systems
that affected 500 million user accounts, data on one billion accounts — stolen in another attack on the company a year earlier — appeared to remain available on underground hacker forums on Friday.
One Billion Yahoo Accounts Still for Sale, Despite Hacking Indictments -
By VINDU GOELMARCH 17, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO — For sale: one billion Yahoo accounts, $200,000 or best offer.
He said the person or people behind the 2013 intrusion probably sold, traded or were
forced to share their access to Yahoo’s systems with Russian intelligence services.
The two Russian intelligence agents indicted in the 2014 breach are accused of using
that access to conduct their own spying operation with the assistance of Mr. Belan and another conspirator in Canada.
Alex Holden, founder of Hold Security, a cybersecurity firm, said one prevailing
theory in the industry was that Mr. Belan capitalized on the earlier breach.
Alexsey Belan, the technical expert who was charged with breaking into Yahoo’s systems in
2014 at the behest of two Russian intelligence officers, has a long record of cybercrime.
In 2013, Mr. Belan struck again, hacking into Evernote
and Scribd, two digital document storage services, according to a federal indictment filed against him that June.
