Yahoo! hit with data breach lawsuit

Yahoo! is facing a lawsuit following its disclosure last month that hackers stole 450,000 unencrypted email addresses and passwords of its members.

The suit was filed July 31 by a US user and victim Jeff Allan who alleged in the complaint that Yahoo! didn't properly protect his personal information, and sought unspecified compensation for himself and other affected users, according to a Bloomberg report.

In a blog post last month, the web giant said the intruders accessed a "standalone file" that contained the login data used by writers who joined Associated Content prior to May 2010, the month when Yahoo! acquired the company for $100 million.

Now called Yahoo! Contributor Network, the business unit specializes in producing freelancer-generated, search-optimized content.

The hackers, which claimed to be part of a relatively unknown contingent known as "D33ds Company," likely obtained the information in clear text through a SQL injection attack, a common technique used to infiltrate vulnerable web applications.

Yahoo! has since closed the vulnerability that led to the breach. A spokesperson could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

Lawsuits following breaches are commonplace, but often the plaintiffs find little recourse unless they can prove actual harm.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com