Yahoo has updated its mail app to introduce fingerprint recognition for Android users. With the upgrade, people can now use fingerprint scan on their smartphones as password to access the inbox. The update is available on Google Play Store, reported the Android Police.

The new update also allows users to set a custom password and make changes to account information and edit contact details from the app itself. The company has also introduced a 'Preview' tab that allows users to see links or videos in the app, according to The Indian Express.

These extra security measures come after the tech giant faced a huge data breach last week. On September 22, Yahoo confirmed that account information of an estimated 500 million users was stolen from the company's network in late 2014. The company believes that the data breach was carried out by a "state-sponsored actor", but its investigation has found that no such agent is currently in its network.

The information stolen may have included names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers in some cases, according to the blog post. However, their investigation did confirm that no details of payment card data or banking-related information were stolen as this data is "not stored in the system that the investigation has found to be affected".

After the date breach, the tech giant has been repeatedly urging users to change their passwords and security questions at the earliest and "adopt alternate means" to verify their accounts.