OP 17 December, 2024 - 06:33 AM
As TechCrunch has learned, over the past year, Yahoo has laid off about 25% of its cybersecurity team, known as "Paranoids."
According to several current and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity, since the beginning of 2024, the company has laid off or lost 40 to 50 people out of its 200 cybersecurity team employees due to exhaustion. (Yahoo is the parent company of TechCrunch.)
Paranoids aren't the only team affected by the layoffs. Valery Liborski, who was named Yahoo's chief technology officer (CTO) in September, sent out a letter to employees this week informing them of changes in the technology division, including enterprise productivity and core services. An email obtained by TechCrunch reads as follows: "This was a very difficult decision, and I did not take it lightly."
This week, Paranoids' "red team," also known as the offensive security team, which conducts cyberattack simulations to identify weaknesses in the company's network before outside hackers do, was completely dismantled, and there have been at least three rounds of layoffs this year affecting the cybersecurity team, the sources said.
Yahoo confirmed the layoffs, including the liquidation of the red team, when contacted by TechCrunch on Thursday.
"Over the past seven years, Yahoo's security program has grown significantly and is widely recognized as an industry-leading, world-class operation. As part of this evolution, we have made strategic adjustments, including moving offensive security operations to an outsourcing model," said Yahoo spokesman Brenden Lee. "This change reflects the complexity of our program and allows us to focus resources on critical security priorities while maintaining the highest standards of protection for our users and platforms."
Last year, the company as a whole laid off more than 1,600 employees - about 20% of the total workforce, as reported by Axios at the time. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jim Lanzone told Axios that the layoffs would be "extremely beneficial to Yahoo's profitability as a whole" and that the company would "go on the offensive" and invest in other parts of its business.
source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/12/y...ayoffs-outsourcing-of-red-team-under-new-cto/
According to several current and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity, since the beginning of 2024, the company has laid off or lost 40 to 50 people out of its 200 cybersecurity team employees due to exhaustion. (Yahoo is the parent company of TechCrunch.)
Paranoids aren't the only team affected by the layoffs. Valery Liborski, who was named Yahoo's chief technology officer (CTO) in September, sent out a letter to employees this week informing them of changes in the technology division, including enterprise productivity and core services. An email obtained by TechCrunch reads as follows: "This was a very difficult decision, and I did not take it lightly."
This week, Paranoids' "red team," also known as the offensive security team, which conducts cyberattack simulations to identify weaknesses in the company's network before outside hackers do, was completely dismantled, and there have been at least three rounds of layoffs this year affecting the cybersecurity team, the sources said.
Yahoo confirmed the layoffs, including the liquidation of the red team, when contacted by TechCrunch on Thursday.
"Over the past seven years, Yahoo's security program has grown significantly and is widely recognized as an industry-leading, world-class operation. As part of this evolution, we have made strategic adjustments, including moving offensive security operations to an outsourcing model," said Yahoo spokesman Brenden Lee. "This change reflects the complexity of our program and allows us to focus resources on critical security priorities while maintaining the highest standards of protection for our users and platforms."
Last year, the company as a whole laid off more than 1,600 employees - about 20% of the total workforce, as reported by Axios at the time. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jim Lanzone told Axios that the layoffs would be "extremely beneficial to Yahoo's profitability as a whole" and that the company would "go on the offensive" and invest in other parts of its business.
source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/12/y...ayoffs-outsourcing-of-red-team-under-new-cto/