A Biden administration-appointed Cyber Safety Review Board criticized Microsoft’s corporate security and transparency in a report, accusing the tech giant of a “cascade of errors” that allowed state-backed Chinese hackers to breach the email accounts of US officials
According to the report, one of the officials who had her account breached was Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
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Driving the news: The report detailed poor cybersecurity practices, a lax corporate culture, and a lack of sincerity about the company’s knowledge of the targeted breach that affected multiple US agencies dealing with China.
- It concluded that “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul.”
- The panel made sweeping recommendations, including urging Microsoft to halt adding features to its cloud computing environment until significant security improvements have been made.
- The board also called for rapid cultural change at Microsoft, including a public plan with specific timelines for security-focused reforms across the company and its full suite of products.
- The board expressed concern about another hack disclosed by Microsoft in January, in which email accounts, including those of senior Microsoft executives and customers, were compromised and attributed to state-backed Russian hackers.
What they’re saying: While Microsoft thanked the board for its investigation and pledged to harden its systems against attack and implement more robust sensors and logs, it called the hackers “well-resourced nation-state threat actors who operate continuously and without meaningful deterrence,” in a statement.
