Yahoo’s cybersecurity team is seeing layoffs, the elimination of the ‘red team,’ under a new CTO

Yahoo has laid off about 25% of its online security team – known as The Paranoids – Last year, TechCrunch learned.

In total, the company has left or lost 40 to 50 people from 200 employees in the network security group from the beginning of 2024, according to several recent and former Yahoo employees who spoke to TechCrunch anonymously. (Yahoo is TechCrunch’s parent company.)

The Paranoids aren’t the only group affected by the cancellation. Valeri Liborski, who was appointed Yahoo’s chief technology officer in Septembersent an email this week to employees announcing changes to a broader technology, including business productivity and core services. An email to employees, obtained by TechCrunch, said: “This was a very difficult decision and I did not take it lightly.”

The team called the red team of Paranoids, or the offensive security team – which conducts cyberattack experiments to identify weaknesses in the company’s network before they are born outsiders – was terminated this week, and there have been about three dismissals that have affected the cybersecurity team. this year, according to sources.

Yahoo confirmed the layoffs, including the dismissal of its red team, when reached by TechCrunch on Thursday.

“Yahoo’s security program has grown significantly over the past seven years and is recognized as a world-class, industry-leading service. As part of this evolution, we have made changes, including transitioning security measures to an external version,” said Yahoo spokesman Brenden Lee. . “This change reflects the maturity of our software and allows us to focus on our most important security features, maintaining the highest level of security for our users and platforms.”

The company as a whole laid off more than 1,600 workers – about 20% of its total workforce – last year. as Axios reported at the time. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone told Axios that the layoffs “would be very beneficial to Yahoo’s bottom line,” and that the company would be “disappointed” to invest in other areas of its business.