Every Yahoo email address was hacked in 2013, company says

Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Every single Yahoo email account -- more than 3 billion -- was affected by a data breach in 2013, the company said Tuesday.

The information was released by Verizon Communications, which bought Yahoo for $4.48 billion earlier this year. The disclosure comes less than a year after Yahoo announced that a data breach affected approximately 1 billion accounts.

This time, however, the company is saying that every Yahoo email address fell victim to the data breach. And The New York Times reported that hackers obtained names, birth dates, phone numbers, passwords, security questions and backup email addresses used to reset passwords.

But Oath, the Verizon Communications subsidiary that owns Yahoo, said in a statement that the hackers did not gain access to users' financial information.

"The investigation indicates that the user account information that was stolen did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information,"

In a separate statement, Yahoo said it took steps to rectify the data breach after it occurred.

"It is important to note that, in connection with Yahoo's December 2016 announcement of the August 2013 theft, Yahoo took action to protect all accounts," the company said. "The company required all users who had not changed their passwords since the time of the theft to do so. Yahoo also invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers so they cannot be used to access an account."