Major internet companies are strengthening their systems against unauthorized access after reports of NSA surveillance revealed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden were made public.

Last year, Snowden said that NSA had secretly breached Google and Yahoo systems by intercepting traffic and collecting data from millions of account holders worldwide.

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In response, tech companies are gearing up to increase investments in upgrading encryption programs, according to the Washington Post.

Google is reportedly augmenting its existing undersea fiber optic cable network to make sure that movement of information would be more controlled.

Google security chief Eric Grosse said that this is by no means an act of defiance but that Google is simply protecting customers' data which is part of the service.

"I am willing to help on the purely defensive side of things, but signals intercept is totally off the table," he said.

Yahoo has reportedly upgraded its entire network communications systems earlier this year, that would in part, guard against unwelcome snooping by hackers and government agencies alike. It also plans to adopt a more complex encryption across all its services.

Likewise, other firms like Apple, Microsoft and Facebook are beefing up their security.

Although encryption would not actually prevent the NSA from accessing private data servers, tech experts say that this would at least make it harder for mass viewing of encrypted traffic. The NSA surely would be able to access encrypted data but it would involve a more targeted and time-consuming work.

"If the NSA wants to get into your system, they are going to get in," said Christopher Soghoian, computer security expert of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"This is all about making dragnet surveillance impossible," he added.

Legally, I.T. firms are required to provide information to government agencies under specific court-approved channels. But companies are starting to deny requests to volunteer data not covered by the law.

For instance, in Yahoo's first government transparency report last year, it was revealed that the firm had received 12,400 requests for customer data covering at least 40,322 user accounts.

Additionally, the firms strongly urged the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to decrease NSA's surveillance powers.

General counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert Litt described the events as "an unquestionable loss for our nation that companies are losing the willingness to cooperate legally and voluntarily."

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