Yahoo to pay $50M in damages, free credit-monitoring services for massive security breach

Yahoo has agreed to pay USD 50 million in damages and provide two years of free credit-monitoring services to about 200 million people in the US and Israel whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen as part of the biggest security breach in history.

The restitution hinges on federal court approval of a settlement filed late Monday in a 2-year-old lawsuit seeking to hold Yahoo accountable for digital burglaries that occurred in 2013 and 2014 but weren't disclosed until 2016.

About 3 billion Yahoo accounts were hit by hackers that included some linked to Russia by the FBI. The settlement reached in a San Francisco court covers about 1 billion of those accounts held by an estimated 200 million people.

Yahoo is now owned by Verizon Communications.

(With inputs from agencies.)