State’s Data Protection Commissioner’s Office and US authorities to probe Yahoo breach

The Data Protection Commissioner’s Office has said it is joining forces with US authorities to co-ordinate their enquiries into the theft of information from at least 500m Yahoo users’ accounts.

The company said on Thursday that it believed a “state-sponsored actor” stole information including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords and encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.

Yahoo’s European Headquarters are in Ireland, and the Data Protection Commissioner’s office yesterday confirmed that the company has made contact to notify it of the breach.