Today , federal officials announced new charges relating to the 2014 hack of Yahoo , alleging a conspiracy between criminal hackers and the Russian Federal Security Agency ( or FSB ) . The indictment names two FSB agents — Igor Suschin and Dmitry Dokuchaev — who allegedly contracted two criminal hackers — Aleksey Belan and Karim Baratov — to compromise Attack.Databreach Yahoo ’ s database , which included both US military officers and Russian journalists believed to be of interest to the FSB . Baratov was arrested yesterday in Canada , Department of Justice officials say . “ There are no free passes for foreign , state-sponsored criminal behavior , ” Assistant Attorney General McCord told reporters at a press conference . When Yahoo first disclosed the breach in September , the company attributed the attack to “ a state-sponsored actor , ” a claim that some security experts found questionable at the time . Subsequent reports found that the Yahoo database was sold Attack.Databreach a number of times , suggesting a criminal profit motive rather than intelligence gathering . According to the Department of Justice , that was a result of the FSB ’ s collaboration with its criminal contractors , who sold much of the stolen information after it had been handed over . One of the contractors also allegedly searched the accounts for gift cards and other financial info . Yahoo ’ s database was breached Attack.Databreach two separate times during the period — once in August 2013 and again in late 2014 , revealing account details for hundreds of millions of users each time . Today ’ s charges deal only with the 2014 breach Attack.Databreach , which compromised Attack.Databreach 500 million accounts . Many blamed Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer for refusing to invest in more robust security measures . Mayer later acknowledged the error , and gave up her annual salary , bonus and equity grant for 2016 as a result . Details of the breaches became public only after Yahoo had struck a deal to be acquired by Verizon . News of the security issues caused significant friction in the deal , ultimately causing Verizon to lower its purchase price by $ 350 million , to $ 4.4 billion dollars .