Yahoo! to encrypt all user data

In the wake of the NSA and GCHQ spying scandals, Yahoo! has announced that it is to encrypt all user data by the end of the first quarter next year.

In October the Washington Post and the Guardian received documents from former National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistle-blower Edward Snowden alleging that the NSA had hijacked the main communication links that connect Yahoo!’s data centres.

In response, a statement was posted on the Yahoo! website on Tuesday by the company’s CEO Marissa Mayer, claiming Yahoo! had worked hard over the years to earn users’ trust and that they still “fight hard to preserve it”.

Mayer said that users can expect encryption of all information that moves between Yahoo! data centers by the end of March 2014 as well as the offer to encrypt all data flow to and from Yahoo! by the same period.

“I want to reiterate what we have said in the past: Yahoo! has never given access to our data centres to the NSA or to any other government agency. Ever,” Mayer said.

“There is nothing more important to us than protecting our users’ privacy. To that end, we recently announced that we will make Yahoo! Mail even more secure by introducing https (SSL – Secure Sockets Layer) encryption with a 2048-bit key across our network by January 8, 2014.

“We will continue to evaluate how we can protect our users’ privacy and their data. We appreciate, and certainly do not take for granted, the trust our users place in us.”