It has taken Yahoo a ridiculously long time, but it is finally rolling out an option that will help protect users’ privacy when accessing their web-based email – HTTPS.
Yahoo Mail has lagged behind competitors such as Hotmail (in the process of being rebranded Outlook.com) and Gmail by not allowing users to access their email through HTTPS.
If you don’t have full-session HTTPS turned on for your webmail, anybody on your WiFi network could read any of the emails you write and receive using a tool like FireSheep, as they are transmitted from Yahoo to your browser.
That’s because, without HTTPS, they are sent as unencrypted text.
If you are using Yahoo Mail, my advice is to enable this privacy option as soon as possible. Here’s how you do it…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
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