The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently investigating Yahoo over their two large data breaches last year and whether the company notified investors too late, according to USA Today.
“The SEC’s investigation looks into whether Yahoo disclosed information about the data breaches in timely enough fashion,” reported USA Today. “SEC rules require companies to disclose data breaches and cyberattacks as soon as it is determined the incidents could have an effect on investors.”
“As part of its investigation, the SEC last month requested documents from Yahoo,” they continued. “The agency has been seeking a model case for cybersecurity rules it issued in 2011.”
In December, it was revealed that over one billion Yahoo users had been affected by a hack, just months after a previous hack was announced by the company.
In both incidents, users had their names, email addresses, dates of birth, security questions and answers, phone numbers, and hashed passwords stolen by hackers, including the details of over 150,000 government employees.
Yahoo was reportedly aware of the first large hack, which led to over 500 million account details being stolen, in 2014. However, they failed to announce the incident to the public until late 2016.
Following both hacking incidents, and the revelation that Yahoo had been secretly scanning user emails for U.S. intelligence agencies, Verizon reportedly sought a significant discount on their purchase of the company.
Earlier this month, Breitbart Tech reported that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was set to resign from her position following Verizon’s purchase of the company, a deal which a Verizon executive earlier in January cast doubt on over Yahoo’s scandals.
Mayer’s reign as CEO has been controversial, with the CEO facing a lawsuit last year that claimed she purposely purged male employees, and with several employees of Tumblr, the popular micro-blogging platform owned by Yahoo, also claiming that Mayer had caused the decline of the social network.
In January 2016, Mayer also faced backlash after making a joke to employees about the number of layoffs at the company.
“No layoffs… this week!” joked Mayer, in response to questions raised by concerned employees.
A New York Times report also claimed that Mayer had denied repeated requests for additional investment in Yahoo’s cybersecurity, with the security team allegedly derisively referred to as “paranoids” inside the company.
It is currently unknown as to how much Verizon has offered to pay for Yahoo, but it is expected to be less than the original $4.8 billion offer.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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