Following the implementation of an end-to-end encryption upgrade by Google to their Gmail service, Yahoo has announced that by 2015 their email offering will also use the same security enhancements.
Yahoo’s Chief Information Security Officer, Alex Stamos, took the opportunity during his speech at the recent Black Hat conference to discuss these upgrades and note that increased security measures will help users of their email service to “communicate in an encrypted manner with other Yahoo Mail users, but also with Gmail users and eventually with other email systems that adopt similar methodologies.”
Also of interest is the announcement that the source code for the upgrades will be available to the open source community, allowing for further refinement and testing.
According to Google, future security enhancements will include Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption for Gmail –it is expected that Yahoo will follow suit with a similar offering.
Between 425 million Gmail users and 273 million Yahoo Mail users –securing email traffic between these services is a significant improvement.
Jillian Koskie is an experienced software developer, content writer, project manager and usability design expert. With over 17 years in these roles, Jillian has enjoyed applying her skill-set to assist clients and users across a wide variety of sectors including: legal, health, and financial services. Combining these professional opportunities with a love of technology, Jillian is pleased to contribute articles, opinions, and advice to numerous news outlets, websites, and publications.
