by Jeffrey Bonforte, SVP of Communication Products

At Yahoo, we take the security of our users very seriously. In a constantly changing digital environment, we recognize the need to continuously evaluate how to best protect your information.

Yahoo Mail users can already enable https [or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)], a communications protocol that securely encrypts your information and messages as they move between your browser and Yahoo’s servers. You’ll find this option in your Yahoo Mail settings menu under the security tab. Electing this option enhances your privacy and security.

Starting January 8, 2014, we will make encrypted https connections standard for all Yahoo Mail users. Our teams are working hard to make the necessary changes to default https connections on Yahoo Mail, and we look forward to providing this extra layer of security for all our users.

Yahoo will continue to enhance our security technology, policies and practices to provide the best possible protections for our users. We invite you to check out our Yahoo Security Center to learn about other steps you can take to help protect yourself online.

UPDATE: 

In addition to making https a default feature by January 2014 for all Yahoo Mail users, we plan to implement 2048-bit encryption keys, which will provide our users with a further layer of security.