Yahoo secretly created a custom piece of software which searched its customers’ emails for specific information requested by US intelligence officials, Reuters reports.
Former employees at the tech company claim hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts were being scanned following a request from either the National Security Agency or FBI.
All arriving messages from other email addresses were affected, and it is not known what phrases were being searched for.
Yahoo’s decision to comply with the request is said to have infuriated some of the company’s top executives – especially as the tech giant’s security team was not involved in building the secretive program which scoured messages.
When the security team discovered the software, they thought it had been created by hackers, and reportedly found a programming flaw which meant a hacker could have accessed the emails flagged up as including the phrase intelligence officials had specified… see more
source: skynews
Tags: technology, US government, Yahoo Emails
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