Yahoo Will Encrypt All Data Moving Between its Data Centers

yahoo-coops-lockport

Several Yahoo Computing Coop data centers in Lockport, N.Y.

In a move to reassure customers about the privacy and security of their data, Yahoo today said it will encrypt all data moving between its data centers.  The announcement, made in a Tumblr by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, follows a similar effort by Google.

Documents leaked by former NSA sysadmin Edward Snowden suggest that the National Security Agency has attempted to intercept data moving across private intra-data center networks operated by both Google and Yahoo.

"We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it.," Mayer wrote. "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. Today we are announcing that we will extend that effort across all Yahoo products."

Mayer said Yahoo would:

Google recently said an existing program to encrypt more data in transit was stepped up in June as Google sought to reassure consumers about the U.S. government’s access to data traveling across its network.