Yahoo Encrypts All Data Centres And Promises New Messenger Service
Yahoo has moved to encrypt all traffic moving between its data centres to prevent outsiders from easily accessing customer data and will release an encrypted version of its Messenger service in the coming months.
Related: Yahoo encrypts all products in response to NSA spying
The encryption, which was fully rolled out at the end of last month, covers all data moving between the company’s data facilities and extends to all search requests made on the Yahoo homepage that are now automatically encrypted.
“Hundreds of Yahoos have been working around the clock over the last several months to provide a more secure experience for our users and we want to do even more moving forward. Our goal is to encrypt our entire platform for all users at all time, by default,” said Alex Stamos, chief information security officer at Yahoo.
The company will also launched a new fully-encrypted version of its Yahoo Messenger service in the coming months and various Yahoo sites will also be brought under the security best practices standards implemented by the company.
“One of our biggest areas of focus in the coming months is to work with and encourage thousands of our partners across all of Yahoo’s hundreds of global properties to make sure that any data that is running on our network is secure,” Stamos added. “Our fight to protect our users and their data is an on-going and critical effort. We will continue to work hard to deploy the best possible technology to combat attacks and surveillance that violate our users’ privacy.”
Related: 6 important points Edward Snowden made at SXSW
Yahoo first pledged that it would be encrypting all of its products in November 2013 following whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s leaked documents that showed the extend of National Security Agency [NSA] spying on US citizens and those around the world. The documents implicated Yahoo by revealing that the NSA had asked the company and various others to provide user information to help with the spying effort, and led it to implement this large-scale encryption.
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