The agency has several ways to get around the protection

Sep 6, 2013 06:11 GMT  ·  By

If you thought the best of Edward Snowden's leaks were behind us, think again. The latest revelation should give every one of us pause to think just how unprotected we are on the web.

Confirming rumors and suspicions that go back years, it has been revealed that the NSA has been systematically working on breaking, bypassing, or weakening encryption in any shape or form.

The NSA is working on several levels to make sure that encryption doesn't stop it from snooping around.

"For the past decade, NSA has lead [sic] an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to break widely used internet encryption technologies," reveals a 2010 GCHQ document uncovered by Edward Snowden and seen by the New York Times and the Guardian, who have made the latest revelations.

"Vast amounts of encrypted internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable," the document added.

Many times, this means getting around the encryption entirely, by hacking into computers or networks at the end the encrypted channel, thus getting access to the communications in plain form.

The NSA has also pressured or coerced encryption and secure software vendors to insert backdoors into their products, giving the agency a way to bypass the encryption.

Finally, the NSA has worked to weaken encryption standards regularly used online by including vulnerabilities only known to it. By exploiting those vulnerabilities, the NSA is able to access encrypted communications that others can't penetrate.

These efforts have been highly classified and known only to a select few, until now. These aren't the only ways the NSA is able to bypass encryption and, when everything else fails, it simply uses brute force to crack weaker encryption protocols.

There is also talk of a significant "breakthrough" in 2010 which rendered a lot of Internet traffic "exploitable." There weren't any details about what exactly the NSA managed to achieve, as these are only available to people with even higher clearance, a very small number of officers.

That said, strong encryption still works, as long as you don't rely on software from big vendors and ensure that your computer and network is protected, which is easier said than done. Here's a guide on measures you can take to protect yourself.