According to Reuters report, Yahoo was hacked on June 12 and over 450,000 users' login information were posted online. In a written statement, Yahoo stated that less than 5% of the breached Yahoo accounts had valid passwords.

Company spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek did not identify the other companies whose credentials were stolen or say how many of the stolen logins were for Yahoo's sites. She said the data was included in "an older file", reported Reuters.

"At Yahoo! we take security very seriously and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products... We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users' accounts may have been compromised," the news agency quoted Lengkeek as saying.

The hackers, who called themselves D33Ds Co., claimed that they broke into Yahoo's database and retrieved the information of its users. The group posted over 453,492 email addresses and passwords of Yahoo users on a public website.

Yahoo apologized for the hack and encouraged that users change their password for their own security as a precautionary step. Yahoo Inc said that it is currently investigating into the security breach that allowed the hackers to expose users' email addresses and passwords.

But this isn't the first time a major company's security has been breached. Michael Jackson's back catalogue was snatched from Sony Music and LinkedIn's user passwords were distributed online.

Does this show the lack of security online company's provided or the rise of more intelligent hackers?