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US reportedly ready to charge 4 in Yahoo's massive hacks

One suspect was near arrest in Canada, while the other three are in Russia, Bloomberg reports.

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Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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The hacks at Yahoo compromised more than 1 billion user accounts.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The US Justice Department plans to indict four people in connection with the hacking attacks against Yahoo that compromised more than 1 billion user accounts, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

One of the alleged hackers is in Canada and is expected to be arrested soon, according to the report, which cited an anonymous person described as having been briefed on the matter. The other three individuals are currently in Russia, according to Bloomberg's source.

Yahoo declined to comment on the report. The Justice Department, which on Tuesday announced a media briefing for Wednesday morning by the department's national security division, did not respond to a request for comment.

The hacks, each of which was described as the largest cybersecurity breach ever, have been a serious embarrassment for Yahoo, which is seeking to sell itself to Verizon . The turmoil began in September when the troubled internet giant revealed a 2014 data breach in which hackers in 2014 swiped user information from half a billion accounts. A few months later, the company reported a separate hack in 2013 affected more than 1 billion user accounts.

The scandal led Verizon, which had already agreed to acquire Yahoo for $4.83 billion, to secure a $350 million discount on the deal last month.

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