US senator wants investigation into those responsible for reporting Yahoo hack

Senator Mark Warner wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Yahoo acted correctly in informing the public in a timely manner about the hack that became known last week.

The Democratic senator is asking for the investigation because various reports would indicate that Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Meyer already knew in July about the burglary in which data from about 500 million user accounts was stolen in 2014. This should have been announced in good time to the shareholders of Verizon, which announced its intention to acquire Yahoo at the end of July, TechCrunch writes.

In August, TechCrunch already picked up signals of a ‘significant break-in’. Then Yahoo reported that they were aware of the claim and that they were working hard to uncover the facts. Then, on September 9, Yahoo reported that there were no irregularities, such as unauthorized access to the systems, to report to Verizon.

Warner asks the SEC to investigate more large companies because “less than 100 of the approximately 9,000 listed companies have reported a relevant hack since 2010”. He suspects that the threshold for reporting such a problem may need to be re-evaluated.