Verizon Seeks $1 Billion Discount On Yahoo Acquisition Price Following Security Breach Disclosure

The security breach that rocked Yahoo two years ago could end up costing the company and its shareholders a lot of money—$1 billion, to be exact. That's the amount Verizon wants discounted from its pending acquisition of the search and media giant after agreeing to the buy Yahoo for $4.8 billion. The deal has yet to be finalized.

Verizon's plan was to mesh Yahoo with AOL, the latter of it purchased a year ago for $4.4 billion. However, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong may be looking at ways to back out of the deal after it came to light that Yahoo failed to disclose the extent of its security breach in a timely manner.


"In the last day we’ve heard that Tim is getting cold feet. He’s pretty upset about the lack of disclosure and he’s saying can we get out of this or can we reduce the price?," a source who's supposedly familiar with Verizon’s thinking told New York Post.

Yahoo suffered a major breach in 2014 that compromised the personal information of around 500 million user accounts. However, it was only recently that Yahoo disclosed the full extent of the cyber attack. It's since been hit with a class action suit for gross negligence, though the bigger cost could come from Verizon finding a way to back out of the deal altogether.

The more likely scenario is a reduced acquisition price. It's said that Tim and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer are currently in talks, though it's not clear if Yahoo's willing to negotiate another deal.

Thumbnail Image Source: Flickr (Mike Mozart)