Russia denies it's responsible for Yahoo hack

15/03/2017 - 15.32:The US Justice Department is set to blame the Yahoo hack on Russian spies and government-hired hackers, according to reports.

Reports have indicated that the US law enforcement is preparing to move on four individuals connected to the cyber-attack, but according to the Washington Post, new information has revealed that the suspects are all tied to the Kremlin.

According to the report, two operatives working for the Russian intelligence agency FSB and two state-sponsored cyber criminals will be charged with economic espionage, wire fraud, trade secret theft and hacking.

The indictments will be the first criminal hacking charges ever brought against Russian government personnel, and also come as part of the US' largest ever hacking case.

The Washington Post has stated that Russia carried out the hack, which affected Yahoo customers' email services as well as apps like Flickr, in order to target dissidents, journalists, US government officials, in addition to monetising the accounts through spam operations.

15/03/2017 - 12.39:US authorities are ready to issue indictments against individuals allegedly involved in the hacking attacks against Yahoo revealed last year, which affected more than 1.5 billion users.

The US Justice Department is targeting four people accused of participating in the massive cyber attacks against the US technology giant, according to an anonymous Bloomberg source.

An arrest of a suspect in Canada will be made as early as Tuesday, although three others are currently in Russia, according to the source.

The individuals are suspected of being involved in the theft of millions of user details through a security breach, including email addresses, dates of birth and hashed passwords, which could be used in more targeted attacks in the future.

Yahoo disclosed news of an attack in September which had been carried out at some point in late 2014, leading to the loss of 500 million user records. Yet this was eclipsed by news in December of a separate hack in 2013, in which involved over one billion user accounts.

News of the two data breaches almost scuppered plans for a takeover deal by Verizon, which has since been marked down by $350 million to $4.48 billion. The hacks also damaged Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's departure from the company, who was recently paid $23 million as a parting gift from Verizon, $9 million less than was anticipated before news of the breach.

Yahoo has failed to identify those responsible for the larger 2013 breach, according to a recent filing, but has said it believed a state-sponsored actor was to blame for the attack in 2014.

Yahoo has declined to comment on the news.