A newly filed Schedule A proxy statement at the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Verizon requested a discount of 925 million dollar off the original 4.83 billion purchase price because of the massive hacking scandal. The Yahoo hacking incident(s) exfiltrated the credentials of 1.5 billion users over the last years.
Last year July, both parties agreed on the amount of 4,83 billion as the acquisition price. Negotiations were reopened when it became clear that attackers during two massive hacks had infiltrated Yahoo's network and grabbed 1.5 billion user names, passwords and other data. Yahoo ultimately agreed to a price of 4,48 billion, 350 million dollars less than originally agreed. The SEC form does not go into detail how this amount was established but you can imagine batallions of lawyers duking it out.
Mayer Gets 23 Million Parting Gift
Yahoo also laid out the severance packages for executives that will be leaving the company as it sells its Internet business and emerges as an Alibaba stock-holding company called Altaba. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's CEO, will receive a package of cash, stock, and benefits valued at a total of $23,011,325 at the completion of the deal, according to Yahoo's proxy statement. Of that, $3 million will be in cash. All this despite the hacks happening on her watch.
Yahoo’s board said it wouldn’t award Ms. Mayer her 2016 cash bonus, and accepted her offer to forgo her 2017 equity awards. The review also triggered the resignation of Yahoo’s top lawyer, Ronald Bell. The board directed Yahoo to beef up its cybersecurity measures.
Yahoo has never given details of how the allegedly "nation-state" (here is more about that) hackers infiltrated the company's network, but experts say the most likely vector was the old reliable spoofed spear phishing attack fooling a Yahoo employee with either a malicious attachment or link that then downloaded malware which got the attackers a foothold into its network. That one click of an untrained employee cost Yahoo dearly. Sounds like an expensive lesson to learn that you can prevent with new-school security awareness training.
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