NSA could have accessed Google, Yahoo data through private cable provider — RT USA

NSA could have accessed Google, Yahoo data through private cable provider — RT USA:

 
  Reuters/Kacper Pempel

A new analysis of the National Security Agency’s covert eavesdropping operations suggests the private American company that supplies the likes of Google and Yahoo with fiber optic cables might have allowed the NSA to infiltrate those networks.

Reporters at the New York Times wrote this week that Level 3 Communications — the Colorado-based internet company that manages online traffic for much of North America, Latin America and Europe — is likely responsible for letting the NSA and its British counterpart silently collect troves of sensitive data from the biggest firms on the web.

Last month, top-secret leaked documents released to the media by former intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed efforts by the NSA to intercept web traffic going between data centers owned by big companies in an unencrypted state. A Washington Post report from late October attributes those Snowden leaks as saying that the NSA was receiving millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks and transferring that information to a facility at the agency’s Fort Meade, Maryland headquarters - all in spite of previously leaked documents which detailed how those companies and others had been providing the NSA with front-door access as part of the agency’s PRISM operation.

Nevertheless, the Post reported last month that “From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and the GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.” Data stored within those facilities is highly secure and encrypted, but not while in transit on cables primarily owned by Level 3.