Yahoo shareholders suing company over hacking, data breach

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (KTVU) - One day after the Department of Justice indicted four people in the hacking and massive data breach at Yahoo, shareholders are now suing the company. 

The scandal has affected half a billion Yahoo users. Officials held a news conference on Thursday and said the lawsuit alleges the company's senior executives failed to disclose the hack of customer accounts. 

There lawsuit is said to have literally millions of plaintiffs. If the case is certified, it will be one of the biggest corporate governance cases ever. 

Yahoo executives and its board members are named as defendants, corporately and personally for knowing about the massive hackings of customer information. The suit wants to hold those people liable for shareholder losses. 

"So this case seeks to hold the board at Yahoo accountable for failing to stop, prevent and disclose for over two years, hack that their own senior executives knew about," said attorney Mark Molumthy. 

To complicate matters even more, the lawsuit seeks to make Yahoo's new owner, Verizon, another deep pocket, liable as well. 

The claim is that Verizon aided and abetted in losses of the shareholders. 

"Verizon, one disclosure of the hacks occured in 2016, immediatelyh contacted and renegotiated the deal with Yahoo and reaped $350 million in reduced prices. Yet, did not insist ujpon any compensation changes to Yahoo's executive who were negotiating that deal," added Molumthy. 

Information revealed by the U.S. Department of Justice, about the Russians who did the hacking and how they did it,  will no doubt be used by the shareholders to more precisely target any Yahoo or Verizon wrongdoing.

Yahoo has not released an official statement regarding this lawsuit as of this writing. Check back for updates.