Has there been a hack?

pennypincher2013

Here tells the story of the hack:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016/05/05/if-you-use-gmail-hotmail-or-yahoo-mail-you-should-change-your-password-now/#241a90e2683b

Here tells the story of the hack that wasn't:
http://fortune.com/2016/05/07/gmail-yahoo-mail-hack/

I can't find anyone else saying not to panic because your email and password are safe. I'm sure if there was a hack there would've been more news here in the UK. I haven't found a UK site stating this.

Browntoa

There was suspicion that it was extremely old data , the Russian email site checked their data and said as much

pennypincher2013

How old is old? I was about to change my password any but I have had a rocket put under my bum to change it after reading this.

tronator

If you use for every site a different random password, then you should be safe. Even better if you use a different username/email address for each site.

But it won't hurt to change the password regardless.

Johnmcl7

There's more details here:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/05/the-massive-password-breach-that-wasnt-google-says-data-is-98-bogus/

If it was one mail system and a large number of accounts that would be a major concern as it would indicate their server was compromised. There was such a scattering of different systems that it suggested it was phishing or similar but now it seems it's not even that and most of the accounts are dud.

John

S0litaire

I've had 2nd-factor authentication turned on for ages now.

Gives you better security and less need to change passwords