Twitter has ramped up the security of its user data, following a similar move by Yahoo!, making it harder for hackers to steal personal information of users and check cyber snooping.
The micro-blogging site, which has over 230 million active monthly users, has enabled “forward secrecy” technology for its web and mobile platform.
“On top of the usual confidentiality and integrity properties of HTTPS, forward secrecy adds a new property...
Forward secrecy is just the latest way in which Twitter is trying to defend and protect the user’s voice,” the San Francisco-based company said.
Last week, Yahoo! had announced that it will encrypt all information that flows between its data centres. Google has also ramped up its efforts to protect user data.
The steps by technology giants come amid reports that the U.S. government was snooping on user data.
The reports suggest that this was done to intercept information about what people do and say online without the knowledge of Internet firms like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, LinkedIn and Twitter.
In case an “adversary” is currently recording Twitter users’ encrypted traffic and later tries to steal Twitter’s private keys, the technology will prevent unauthorised use of those keys to decrypt the recorded traffic, Twitter said in a blogpost.
The NYSE-listed Twitter sees about 500 million tweets being sent out per day.
Most tech giants are taking such steps to protect their networks and online customer data from unauthorised access and alleged spying by governments.
