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Spying on Users or Data Breach – Yahoo Has Both

October 6, 2016

A few weeks back, Yahoo admitted that it suffered a data breach in 2014 where at least 500 million (half a billion sounds bigger) usernames and passwords were stolen by hackers. Yahoo's troubles aren't just limited to the data breach. According to Reuters, last year Yahoo built a custom software program to scan all incoming e-mail for specific information at the request of U.S. intelligence officials and fed it to spy agencies. The scanning activity was quickly discovered by Yahoo's own security team, which believed it was the activity of hackers and not an internally sanctioned program.

Is the problem just with Yahoo or are others involved in a massive data collection program? Apparently, the answer seems to put Yahoo squarely in the crosshairs. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook all denied having engaged in similar government-backed data collection initiatives. Another reason to host your own e-mail. That way you only have to worry about the government tapping the communication line, which you should be encrypting anyway.

E-mail: Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
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