Yahoo Repeatedly Didn't Invest In Security, Rejected Bare Minimum Measure To Reset All User Passwords: NYTimes 129
If it wasn't already enough that the mega breach at Yahoo affects over 500 million users, a new investigative report on The New York Times states the extent to which Yahoo didn't care about its users' security (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The report says Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer refused to fund security initiatives at the company, and instead invested money in features and new products. Despite Edward Snowden warning Yahoo that it was too easy of a target for hackers, the company took one year to hire a new chief information officer. The company hired Alex Stamos, who is widely respected in the industry. But Stamos soon left partly due to clashes with Mayer, The Times adds. And it gets worse. From the report:But when it came time to commit meaningful dollars to improve Yahoo's security infrastructure, Ms. Mayer repeatedly clashed with Mr. Stamos, according to the current and former employees. She denied Yahoo's security team financial resources and put off proactive security defenses, including intrusion-detection mechanisms for Yahoo's production systems. [...] But during his tenure, Ms. Mayer also rejected the most basic security measure of all: an automatic reset of all user passwords, a step security experts consider standard after a breach. Employees say the move was rejected by Ms. Mayer's team for fear that even something as simple as a password change would drive Yahoo's shrinking email users to other services.
Bad CEO is bad (Score:4, Insightful)
topic says it all...
Re:Bad CEO is bad (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps you missed the fact that this CEO is a *WOMAN*, which makes her a hero and an inspiration.
This is somehow all the evil male patriarchy's fault.
Re: (Score:1)
Perhaps you missed the fact that this CEO is a *WOMAN*, which makes her a hero and an inspiration.
It's irrelevant.
Re: (Score:3)
She is heroically bad and an inspiration to all people achieving mediocrity in management.
bad eyesight (Score:1)
The report says Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer refused to fund security initiatives at the company, and instead invested money in features and new products.
For a moment I misread that as "... and instead invested the money in her compensation package."
Re: (Score:2)
On my browser it came up as "bought loads of shoes".
Re: (Score:2)
If you hire and M&M https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com], to do the job, don't be surprised when it's brain melts under the pressure. There was likely some good reasons why the M&M was demoted at Google.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they should change Mount Rushmore and replace those evil white men with Marrissa Meyer, Ellen Pao, Elizabeth Holmes, and Hillary Clinton.
You forgot Carly Fiorina!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Bad CEO is bad (Score:4, Informative)
This oughta help sell Yahoo... (Score:3)
Great PR move guys!
I didn't think she was bad (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, I maybe she could do better, but usually you wouldn't call a person who took command of the Titanic as it scraped the iceberg a bad captain.
But, apparently, she deliberately kept going full speed through a cluster of icebergs and ignored all hits. That's pretty damn bad.
Goal-focused CEO (Score:2)
If blame is to be dispensed, we can blame this CEO for doing a poor job of keeping the high-profile CIO under control and for being insufficiently aggressive and proactive on the publicity angle.
With hindsight she might have been better advised to leverage the good reputation of the CIO by stroking him into sponsoring an "innovative and systemic approach" towards security.
For exam
Re: (Score:3)
Except that he's not a moron and would not be assuaged by something that any fool could clearly see as a delaying tactic. They hired him for his expertise, people like him know what they know and he clearly had not just fallen off the turnip truck when he landed at "Yahoo!"
Re: (Score:3)
I've had a company I've worked for (contract work) as desktop support where I've complained loudly about atrocious security and nobody gave a shit. In fact, they had no plan in place at all for handling a breach, and there wasn't even somebody I could contact in the event of one, which I found out when we I noticed that we had a breach (and when I mentioned it to the system engineers, none of them seemed to care.) The only thing I could do was just let it go because the network engineers didn't want to add
Re: (Score:2)
While I can respect your points, I *have* to disagree with you.
What she did was not putting the company's interest first. What she did ensured that there would be a security *and* PR nightmare. Things like this never stay buried, they always come out eventually. That she denied a PWD reset because of being afraid people would leave is inexcusable.
-nb
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if she _had_ put the interests of the company first, she would have made sure the company had adequate IT security for long-term survival.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. She should go to prison and personally have to compensate anybody who suffered damage from her criminal acts.
Re: (Score:1)
Rats! There goes my scam:
http://www.yooha.com/ [yooha.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Rats! There goes my scam:
http://www.yooha.com/ [yooha.com]
Nutscrape 3.0. That's awesome!
Re: (Score:1)
Nah, yours are too micro & soft
Re: Poor Yahoo (Score:2)
Bullcrap, I say! They are nothing but a symphony orchestra with vocals. Laa-aaaa!
Short sighted (Score:5, Funny)
Employees say the move was rejected by Ms. Mayer's team for fear that even something as simple as a password change would drive Yahoo's shrinking email users to other services.
At my company we call this "stepping over a dollar to pick up a nickel".
Re: (Score:1)
My co is so clueless they step over both.
Seems playing with lightning releases their endorphins.
Re:Short sighted (Score:5, Funny)
Mine will hire an outside contractor to pick up both for $20- and then let them keep the dollar and the nickel.
Re: (Score:3)
That would explain MY employer's (major defense contracting corporation) incredible increase in profitability lately.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In England they call this "penny wise, pound foolish".
Re: (Score:2)
In England they call this "penny wise, pound foolish".
That one's old enough that it made it into American English (where it is still in use despite more than two centuries on a non penny-pound currency.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure the two things are connected. What does Pfennig sound like to you? It was in play long after the huns switched to metric.
The way things are going, it might be back soon.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So Where Was the Board? (Score:3)
Re:So Where Was the Board? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So Where Was the Board? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, for starters, LinkedIn only leaked data for around 6 million accounts. Yahoo leaked data for half a billion accounts. Also, considering that people use Yahoo for their personal email and to track their finances, the data on Yahoo was potentially much more sensitive than anything on LinkedIn.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, the impending lawsuits for not reporting such a breach in a timely fashion. That's likely going to nail their stock price hard and probably make any company want to avoid them except for as a penny stock.
Re: (Score:1)
What idiots provide Yahoo with their financial data?
Yahoo has always been where script kiddies go for Remedial Hacking 098
AOL is for those who have graduated to Remedial Hacking 099.
Re: (Score:2)
Most boards are carefully shepherded and managed so that they never actually see what the company does. They usually get the financial numbers and not much more, and don't seem to mind that they're not getting more details.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:1)
And this won't? What a silly shortsighted [expletive] that woman is.
Buh-bye... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Finally deleted my Yahoo & Flickr accounts today. Nothing of value was lost...
I can't even log in, my yahoo account has an old phone number, and i can't log in, since they don't provide any alternative methods
Re: (Score:2)
But they still have your data. :(
yahoo made me change my password (Score:3, Interesting)
They did it twice in recent memory. One time was in 2015 and came out of the blue, possibly as a result of this hack.
Honestly, I don't think passwords are the bigger thing here. When my password was compromised as part of the Gawker leak, Yahoo locked down their system so that you couldn't log into accounts from new IPs. You had to change your password from an IP you've used before before you could log in again.
Getting hacked (seemingly phished) was really bad. Having a system where people in the company can give away this data is also really bad. Not resetting everyone's password seems kind of small potatoes next to all that.
Re: (Score:2)
Yahoo locked down their system so that you couldn't log into accounts from new IPs. You had to change your password from an IP you've used before before you could log in again.
That sounds like a great way to permanently lock the majority of your users out of their accounts. Many ISPs have short DHCP leases; millions of people get a new IP every week or every day. And heaven help you if you're stuck on a phone with CGNAT, you might appear to come from a different IP every few minutes. I've had enough annoyances out of Gmail thinking my logins were suspicious that I finally set up a datapipe to a server with a static IP, and I route my Gmail connections through there.
Wasted millions..... (Score:2)
They could probably have put a monkey into the office instead of Mayer, and be in the same position. Maybe even better because Yahoo would not have made all those failed acquisitions.
It's not even that she laid out some grand strategy or attempted some potentially groundbreaking acquisitions. There has been no vision, no risk-taking, nothing. Her only strategy appears to be to deploy employee-unfriendly policies, while benefiting from special arrangements for her personal life.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite a bit better, because the monkey would not have been able to reject all these sensible proposals.
Mayer 2020? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe she'll go the route of Carly Fiorina and after she's done running companies into the ground she'll try at politics.
Re:Mayer 2020? (Score:4, Interesting)
In fairness, yahoo was almost a lost cause when she came on board, while Carly...
Not quite sure if anything could have been done to save them. They lacked meaningful sources of profit, and improving efficiency would not be enough. I think Mayer realized that the spinoff was the only hope when they unveiled the new logo. Just took too long to execute.
lawsuits (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the surface it sounds good; but if companies get sued for being hacked then more people will try hacking companies that piss them off (or in some cases maybe who are rivals).
Get fired? Hack your employer so that they get sued as payback. Rival kicking your arse? Hire some Russian miscreants to hack them.
Re: (Score:1)
Sue companies when they do stupid shit [medium.com].
There are too many cases of clear negligence.
In addition... (Score:1)
In addition to not forcing a password reset, in my case, the password CANNOT be reset.
When I sign in to yahoo mail through a browser, I am told "Suspicious Activity was detected, Click here to reset your password."
Sounds OK, but my only listed "recovery" e-mail address has been dead for over 15 years...
Re: (Score:2)
Not a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Not one organization I have ever worked for has seriously cared about IT security. The second anyone mentions security, the next question is how much it costs. So I don't think it's a Yahoo thing - I think it happens everywhere. Even banks and healthcare companies, who have some of the most regulated data in the world don't go beyond lip service and a few token defenses to protect it. Companies will continue to offshore vital functions to companies that don't care what happens to data. They'll also continue to ignore key parts of new product development relating to security. I think one of the problems is that IT security guys can't articulate this to executives. They're either from the physical security world, or they're so tech-focused that they can't give a coherent presentation to people who only understand what dollars are.
Companies have insurance, and it's always cheaper to say "oops" and give out free credit monitoring for a year than it is to build a serious defense against security breaches. Until it becomes too expensive to ignore, whether in the form of lost business, fines or lost intellectual property, nothing will change.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
We take security seriously where I work and have good security practices... That being said there are still management types who always want to find a loophole because being secure is to burdensome. They want to share logins, have password that never expire, put data on unencrypted thumb drives, etc...
I usually just remind them that many of our clients want third parties to certify our security practices and if we can't keep that up we will not have clients and they can debate security all they want on the unemployment line.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:2)
Passwords that do not expire
are not a problem. It is when
the hashed passwords and the
salts are exfiltrated that you have
screwed up.
I have passwords that are over
ten years old. Resetting your
password every x days is nothing
but security theater.
You do not need need to force
a password reset until you are
fairly suspicious that the breach
has occurred. Or definitely know.
Yahoo knew. This is epic fail.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing users to change passwords regularly is a security anti-pattern. It produces lower security overall. It's something IT does to express their loathing of the userbase, not a security practice.
Make users change passwords when there's evidence of a breach, and only then.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
Forcing users to change passwords regularly is a security anti-pattern. It produces lower security overall.
That may be true if not for all the other things users do.
I've disabled a manager's credential because I was sure they had shared them with someone they shouldn't even though I warned them not to previously and I found the log in had been used on that user's company device after they had been terminated under very bad circumstances. Needless to say everyone was pissed at me and raised a big stink but as soon as I mentioned a disgruntled ex-employee may have access to that account and why they had no problem listening.
On a fun note someone (possibly the same disgruntled ex-employee) called up every plastic surgeon in about 500 miles and made an appoint for one our managers to have a consultation about breast enlargements.
Re: (Score:2)
The credentials in question came from the manager that was still employed. It was a different user that had been terminated and with whom the manager's credentials had been shared..
Re: (Score:1)
Run a small business anytime in the past twenty years, and go through auditing for pretty much anything around PCI level, and I'd give you a dollar if you found even a *single* QSA who did not make regular changing of passwords a requirement.
It may be stupid, but somebody who had a lot of power in the industry years ago decided it was important and made it a little requirement in some black book somewhere that QSAs use to tell you that your policies are bad and need change. So, it happens pretty much everyw
Re: (Score:1)
A policy forcing password changes limits how long a compromised credential can be used. Doing so can also be one of the ways you generate evidence of a breach.
I don't understand why this silly accusation that IT is doing it to piss of the userbase comes up on here constantly. Yes it sucks and many users are incapable of managing this simple task.. but there is a reason.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
One password is a simple to change. A hundred passwords becomes a big deal. Throw in a random grab bag of retention and password complexity rules and you end up with pissed off users. Pissed off users write passwords down, email them, and other problematic behavior to cope.
Re: (Score:2)
The invisible hand strikes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not one organization I have ever worked for has seriously cared about IT security.
When it comes to rolling out new products, ignoring security is the norm.
This is because the "window of opportunity" is only "open" for a short time - until the first, second, and maybe third movers go through it and grab most of the potential customers. Companies that spent the time to get the security right arrive at the window after it closes.
This happens anywhere the customers don't test for and reject non-secure versions of the "new shiny" - which means enterprises sometimes hold suppliers' feet to the fire (if the new thing doesn't give them an advantage commensurate with, or perceived as outweighing, the risk) but consumer stuff goes out wide open.
Then, if you're lucky and the supplier is clueful, they retrofit SOME security before the bad guys exploit enough holes to kill them.
I expect this will continue until several big-name tech companies get an effective corporate death penalty in response to the damages their customer base took from their security failings. Then the financial types will start including having a good, and improving with time, security story (no doubt called "best practices") among their check boxes for funding.
Re: (Score:3)
Security has always been paid lip service because everyone assumes "it won't happen to me" until it does.. so its very difficult to get a CEO to sign off on a few thousand dollars on something that MAY happen (ironically they will purchase insurance and support contracts under the notion that IF something happens they are covered) Since I work in security and its always an issue.. the world is dangerous and since the laws allow them to, as you said.. "opps", wright off the breach as a loss on the taxes, pa
Re: (Score:1)
I haven't worked for an organization that has cared about IT in general. My previous employer wanted to reduce my pay from $55k to an hourly $12 with 'straight time OT when needed'. I read a story about how they suffered a large amount of downtime due to a technical problem.
You can sit down a manager and explain to them how trying to cheap out on IT infrastructure and personnel will cause massive financial damages and they'll just ask you how many years in the future the damages will occur. If they alrea
Re: (Score:1)
Well, there is a business balance to look at - risk mitigation vs cost. However, if you are in a business where you take reputational risk seriously, you have to take security seriously. This means going through the whole gamut of access management, strict password management, audits and pen tests, user education, as well as the traditional hardware and software based security tools. Are these perfect? Hell no! But, often times having a serious security posture makes the difficulty of attack higher and at l
That explains around 75% of the spam I see lately. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Amazing (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Lets add Hillary who is about to be the CEO of the US and don't forget the hottest CEO in the universe Elizabeth Holmes.
But just like Mylan (Score:4, Insightful)
Just as morality doesn't apply to the 1%, neither does laws of the 99%.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The ex-CEO of Tyco, Dennis Kozlowski, served eight years in prison. My guess the whole time he was in there he was constantly shouting "WTF!" as various CEO's came and went unscathed for frauds much larger than his...
M&A Due dilligence? (Score:1)
It will be bad for Verizon if they knew about these "security choices" and still went ahead with the acquisition. (which may play out in the courts) Airing this type of soiled linens just about erases any residual or liquidation value that Yahoo may have had.
Beautiful day by the Beach
So no password reset still yet then? (Score:2)
How long are they going to wait before they start doing forced resets not just hey we would like it if you changed your password resets?
Yeah I can top that. (Score:1)
I just got an email the other day from Yahoo. Yes, I use their email.
That email said they know I use an outside email client, and that FOR SECURITY I should discontinue using it in favor of using their webmail interface.
This despite the fact that I still have to pay them $20.00 per year to be able to POP my mail (which Google allows for free.)
Yahoo wants to give me fucking lectures about my email security????? And the funniest fucking part? I haven't used Thunderbird since I had to re-image my system whe
She was probably right (Score:2)
At least no waste of their money? (Score:2)
Clawback (Score:3)
Marissa Mayer should be required to forgo all her pay and bonuses for the period when she refused to fund realistic security measures. She ran Yahoo! into the ground and will be richly rewarded for doing so. Great work if you can get it..
Re: (Score:2)
Actually she should go to prison and have all her possession impounded to compensate the users that suffered damage because of her grossly malicious acts.
Poor Marissa (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks for quoting Marissa Mayer's comments on security spending, but next time please attribute it correctly.