Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer did not prioritise protecting the security of its users before the massive cyber attack that affected 500 million accounts, according to a report from The New York Times.
Six former and current employees told the newspaper that when Marissa Mayer took over as CEO, she prioritised the development of new products over tightening up security.
They also claimed that the company internally referred to their security team as the “paranoids” after they repeatedly asked for additional funding to bolster their systems, but had their requests rejected due to concern of damaging the user experience.
They added that Mayer “denied Yahoo’s security team financial resources and put off proactive security defenses, including intrusion-detection mechanisms for Yahoo’s production systems.”
It is not the first time a serious breach has taken place of the company’s security systems. A breach dating back to 2012 was revealed this August that details of 200 million Yahoo accounts had been sold across the internet.
Suzanne Philion, a spokeswoman for the company, told The New York Times that Yahoo had invested sufficiently into security initiatives.
“At Yahoo, we have a deep understanding of the threats facing our users and continuously strive to stay ahead of these threats to keep our users and our platforms secure,” she contended.
It was announced in July that Yahoo had sold its core assets to Verizon in a $4.8 billion deal. It is still unclear whether the breach will affect the deal.
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