The search engine and web services giant, Yahoo! may be about to pay $117.5m in a bid to settle a data breach matter out of court, CNN Business reports.
The California-based firm was the victim of a series of breaches between 2013 and 2016, with the earliest attack impacting upon every single customer account in existence at that point, totalling 3 billion users.
Yahoo! has said that data compromised across all attacks included personal details, email addresses and passwords. Financial information is not believed to have been caught up in the hacks, however.
The current settlement offered by Yahoo! has not yet been approved by the US district attorney, Judge Lucy Koh. Earlier in 2019, Koh rejected a different version of the class-action settlement because she wanted consumer benefits to be more prominent in the deal alongside a more specific settlement total.
Yahoo! was acquired in 2016 by Verizon, which paid $4.48 billion for the web corporation. Then, in 2017, Yahoo! and AOL became Oath, a new company operating under the Verizon umbrella, which has since been renamed Verizon Media.
A spokesperson for Verizon Media told CNN Business that they believed the settlement “demonstrates our strong commitment to security.”
Security budgets have increased since June 2017 for Yahoo! under the firm’s parent firm. The increased cash was directed into bolstering Yahoo!’s security group, improving training, policies and practices around security, the court documents say.
