Dem criticizes Yahoo for not disclosing hack sooner

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) criticized Yahoo on Thursday, saying the tech giant should have come forward sooner about a massive data breach.

“While its scale puts it among the largest on record, I am perhaps most troubled by news that this breach occurred in 2014, and yet the public is only learning details of it today,” Warner said.

{mosads}Yahoo confirmed on Thursday that 500 million accounts on their platforms had been hacked including data on “names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers,” according to a statement from the company.

Yahoo says it believes the hack was state-sponsored.

Peace, the hacker allegedly responsible, though, claims the breach actually happened in 2012.

Warner called on Congress to provide better mechanisms for notifying the public in the event of large-scale hacks.

“Action from Congress to create a uniform data breach notification standard so that consumers are notified in a much more timely manner is long overdue, and I urge my colleagues to work together to pass this essential legislation.”