14 DAY TRIAL // News that the NSA can bypass or crack online security systems protecting the privacy of Internet users didn’t sit well with many big companies who have already expressed concern.
Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have taken to the media to express their concern with the capabilities of the NSA and GCHQ, its British counterpart.
“We are unaware of and do not participate in such an effort, and if it exists, it offers substantial potential for abuse,” Yahoo’s spokesperson said. “Yahoo zealously defends our users’ privacy and responds to government requests for data only after considering every applicable objection and in accordance with the law.”
Google is also taking things seriously and says the users’ data security is a top priority for the company. Once more, they say they do not provide any government, including the one of the United States, with access to its systems, something Google has been saying since the first NSA leaks regarding PRISM.
“We have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring. We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law,” the company said referring to the recent reports about NSA’s extended capabilities.
Microsoft has also taken the time to express its concern about the recent reports regarding the NSA and says that it will press the government for an explanation.
According to a new leaked document from the Snowden stash, published by The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica, intelligence agencies have found a way to circumvent the encryption methods used to secure emails, chats and most Internet traffic.
Furthermore, the GCHQ has reportedly been working to infiltrate encrypted traffic on the most popular services, namely Google, Yahoo, Microsoft’s Hotmail (now Outlook) and Facebook.
The intelligence agencies have tried to convince the publications working on the story not to publish the articles, claiming adversaries could start using other types of encryptions. While some information was pulled out of the reports, the articles still ran.