Yahoo! Inc.(NASDAQ:YHOO) security chief Alex Stamos continues to seek many a supporter to help in building stronger cyber security. Recently, Yahoo! Inc has been an outcast from within the technology industry, after it revealed that it was paid by the National Security Agency (roughly RSA $10 million) to introduce security products.
In 2014, many Yahoo accounts were hacked and credentials stolen from ‘third party’ database. In 2013, yahoo email accounts too were compromised several times.
Much of this has to do with recycling unused email account, a policy which other experts call as moronic. Secondly, Yahoo was also at fault for several years for failure to ‘encrypt the connections’ between Yahoo Mail and servers with HTTPS technology cover.
It was as late as 2014 that it switched to HTTPS, close to half-decade (four years) after peers such as Google Inc did.
Now, Stamos is put in charge to change all of the security lapses at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). He and his team of security workers, called internally as ‘Paranoids’ are working on encrypting emails. He has already sought out teams of hackers to attack Yahoo products as well as networks.
Not only will the hacking teams find the flaws, but will help in fixing it as well.
Another key step that Stamos and his team are attempting to ensure cyber security is to make the use of passwords redundant.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Stamos goal for cyber security is obsessive, given his background as an ethical hacker. After years of being a speaker at Def Conferences, his main goal at the head of a giant internet company is as follows: Build secure plugin browser which would allow ‘end-to-end encrypted emails.’ This plugin is already in use internally at yahoo.
The company hopes to release it for public use by the end of the year. With Google Inc too rolling out its own plugin soon, Yahoo users who will be able to enjoy it initially only on Yahoo platform, will be able to synchronize with Google users as well. Sending and receiving mails between Yahoo and Google will be easy and hassle-free.
Sources: motherboard.vice.com
