Microsoft has stumbled through a series of major cybersecurity failures over the past few years. Experts say the US government’s reliance on its systems means the company continues to get a free pass.
When Microsoft revealed in January that foreign government hackers had once again breached its systems, the news prompted another round of recriminations about the security posture of the world’s largest tech company.
Despite the angst among policymakers, security experts, and competitors, Microsoft faced no consequences for its latest embarrassing failure. The United States government kept buying and using Microsoft products, and senior officials refused to publicly rebuke the tech giant. It was another reminder of how insulated Microsoft has become from virtually any government accountability, even as the Biden administration vows to make powerful tech firms take more responsibility for America’s cyberdefense.
That state of affairs is unlikely to change even in the wake of a new report by the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), a group of government and industry experts, which lambasts Microsoft for failing to prevent one of the worst hacking incidents in the company’s recent history. The report says Microsoft’s “security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul.” READ MORE: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-government-has-a-microsoft-problem/?redirectURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%2Fthe-us-government-has-a-microsoft-problem%2F