Yahoo Rolls Out Enhanced Encryption Measures for Users

by Burke Speaker | April 3, 2014 10:08 am

Yahoo (YHOO[1]) has introduced enhanced encryption technology in areas such as email and homepage services.

[2]The move was done to “combat attacks and surveillance that violate our users’ privacy” according to the company, focusing on encrypted traffic flowing between its data centers.

In a statement in its blog[3], YHOO listed the new security updates, stating that:

• Traffic moving between Yahoo data centers is fully encrypted.
• In the last month, we enabled encryption of mail between our servers and other mail providers that support the SMTPTLS standard.
• The Yahoo Homepage and all search queries that run on the Yahoo Homepage and most Yahoo properties also have HTTPS encryption enabled by default.
• We implemented the latest in security best-practices, including supporting TLS 1.2, Perfect Forward Secrecy and a 2048-bit RSA key for many of our global properties such as Homepage, Mail and Digital Magazines. We are currently working to bring all Yahoo sites up to this standard.
• Users can initiate an encrypted session for Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Good Morning America on Yahoo (gma.yahoo.com) by typing “https” before the site URL in their web browser.

An encrypted update of its Messenger service is also expected in the coming months.

Yahoo has some 800 million global users — though faced bad press last year after news emerged that the government had tapped into transfer information overseas.

“Our fight to protect our users and their data is an on-going and critical effort,” the company said. “We will continue to work hard to deploy the best possible technology to combat attacks and surveillance that violate our users’ privacy.”

The company said then it would provide security updates by March 31 of this year.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2014/04/yahoo-encryption-measures/

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