The top attorney for the once-mighty Silicon Valley giant Yahoo is taking the fall for the company's failures surrounding two record-setting hacks of customer data.  And the CEO is losing more than AU$15 Million in compensation.

An investigation revealed that top executives, company lawyers, and information security staff knew about the hack in 2014, but also had knowledge of subsequent attempts to break into the affected accounts in 2015 and 2016, in all comprising information on more than 500 million user accounts.  The company officials failed to "properly comprehend or investigate" the situation, according to papers filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The board of directors "did not conclude that there was an intentional suppression of relevant information".  ButYahoo's top lawyer Ron Bell handed in his resignation after the investigation determined "that the relevant legal team had sufficient information to warrant substantial further inquiry in 2014, and they did not sufficiently pursue it". 

"No payments are being made to Mr. Bell in connection with his resignation," Yahoo said.

Meanwhile, CEO Marissa Mayer will lose her 2016 annual bonus and her 2017 equity grant, which comes out to the aforementioned $15 Million. 

"I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company's hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo's success in 2016," Ms. Mayer said in a statement.

It's not clear if there's another shoe to drop with Mayer.  The CEO of Target was forced to step down after a massive data breach hit the retailer in 2014.