Yahoo! confirms it has started encrypting all data on its servers amid security fears

3 Apr 2014

Since the beginning of this week, Yahoo! has been encrypting all the information stored in its data centres in response to revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA)’s online snooping.

Yahoo! revealed the move on its official blog and promises all its current products should be free from the prying eyes of governments and hackers alike.

“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,” Alex Stamos, Yahoo!’s recently appointed chief information security officer, wrote in the blog post.

“Our broader mission is to not only make Yahoo! secure, but improve the security of the overall web ecosystem.”

Yahoo! will also be implementing further security measures, including HSTS, Perfect Forward Secrecy and Certificate Transparency over the coming months.

Earlier this year, Yahoo! and other companies, such as Facebook and Microsoft, released their transparency reports detailing the amount of user information requests they received that totalled between 30-31,000.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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