Yahoo Performed Secret Email Scans for FBI

Yahoo scanned its user’s incoming emails to track a specified computer Signature that can be linked to the state sponsored terrorist organization which breached into Yahoo’s system and leaked personal information of around 500 million users.

The system used in scanning was initially invented to scan emails containing child pornography and spam emails. The operation was kept under wraps due to the court order which stated that for the operation to be successful, the state-sponsored organization should not be able to sniff any danger.

Also Read: Yahoo Suffered The Biggest Security Breach

Two government official said that the Justice Department received an order from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to Scan Yahoo’s system and Yahoo was also barred from revealing the matter.To follow the directions of the court, Yahoo customized its existing scanning system which is used to curb malware problems.

With the help of new modifications, the system stored every email containing a digital signature and sent those emails to Federal Bureau of Investigation. The step was highly criticized due to the trade-off  between user’s privacy for security reasons as the system scanned emails of all the users instead of some defined users.

Tech companies have been facing these problems in the US because this type of order makes it impossible for the companies to answer the users about what kind of data they have issued to the Intelligence organizations. Earlier, both Microsoft and Twitter sued the Justice Department over these type of orders which was supported by other tech companies, Apple Inc. being one of them.

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7 October 2016
Rohan Jaitly