MOSCOW, July 12 (RIA Novosti) - US software giant Microsoft has closely cooperated with the US National Security Agency (NSA) by allowing secret services to bypass company’s own encryption codes and gain access particularly to Outlook and Skype among other programs, The Guardian reported citing documents from Edward Snowden.

According to the documents, the NSA “had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail,” and Microsoft also worked with the FBI to grant access to “its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide.”

“In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism,” The Guardian cited one of the provisions in the documents.

Prism is the US electronic surveillance network exposed last month by fugitive former US intelligence contractor Snowden.

Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for leaking details of secret state surveillance programs, arrived in Russia on a flight to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23. The US authorities have revoked Snowden’s passport, and he is now believed to be holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.