Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority, President Brad Smith testified to Congress on Thursday, promising that security will be “more important even than the company’s work on artificial intelligence.”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, “has taken on the responsibility personally to serve as the senior executive with overall accountability for Microsoft’s security,” Smith told Congress.

His testimony comes after Microsoft admitted that it could have taken steps to prevent two aggressive nation-state cyberattacks from China and Russia.

According to Microsoft whistleblower Andrew Harris, Microsoft spent years ignoring a vulnerability while he proposed fixes to the “security nightmare.” Instead, Microsoft feared it might lose its government contract by warning about the bug and allegedly downplayed the problem, choosing profits over security, ProPublica reported.

This apparent negligence led to one of the largest cyberattacks in US history, and officials’ sensitive data was compromised due to Microsoft’s security failures. The China-linked hackers stole 60,000 US State Department emails, Reuters reported. And several federal agencies were hit, giving attackers access to sensitive government information, including data from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the National Institutes of Health, ProPublica reported. Even Microsoft itself was breached, with a Russian group accessing senior staff emails this year, including their “correspondence with government officials,” Reuters reported.

  • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    To reinforce the shift in company culture toward “empowering and rewarding every employee to find security issues, report them,” and “help fix them,” Smith said that Nadella sent an email out to all staff urging that security should always remain top of mind.

    Yeah that ought to do it.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Lol. Considering it was senior management that ignored staff, this statement is even fucking dumber than it sounds.

    • Cosmo@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      "Of course, fixing these kinds of issues won’t push your product deadlines back at all. But we’ll be thankful to you! "

    • Cosmo@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I mean what they have to do is obvious, right? Only one of these two options can help increase ad revenue.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    My suggestion, based on more than three decades of observing and interacting with this company: don’t believe a fucking thing they say, ever.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If Microsoft cares so much about security, then WTF are they doing greenlighting a project like CoPilot / Recall?

    • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Like most big tech companies, they’re actually several divisions all competing with each other. Lately, the AI divisions have latched on to the hype and they’re pushing their wares to other divisions, often with enough clout to keep those in security/privacy quiet. Integrating LLM’s is also a great way for a middle manager type to curry favour with the bosses, and to build little empires for themselves.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Its part of their large scale automation strategy, wherein they gobble up as much of the business practices of an organization’s staff as possible and then offer to provide “AI Employees” who replicate the logic of human staffers at a discounted price.

    • capital@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Businesses that buy the enterprise versions of their software can disable those features in policy.

      They are far less concerned with your security than their paying customers: businesses.

  • tootoughtoremember@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Too late. Linux is going from my hobby project to my primary OS by the time they stop providing Windows 10 updates, if not sooner.

    • tomten@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Thats what I did when win 7 support was ending, been very happy and there’s no way I’m going back to Windows.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’ve spent the better part of my life watching microsoft fuck people over and then when they finally - finally get called out on it they do a bunch of bashful aw-shucksing before doing it again and again and again.

    No.

    Microsoft is dead. Kill it with fire. The US government should have known better, but they didn’t because like every other organization they have a boatload of clueless mid-level managers who only every learned Windows and fall for microsoft’s garbage every time, despite the eye-popping price.

    NO MICROSOFT. EVER. They’re a criminal organizaiton, the amount of destruction they’ve created will never be known.

  • bdot@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    no they won’t. these pricks literally fired their entire AI Ethics team… that tells you everything you need to know about where their priorities are.

    the only thing they are gonna do about this is figure out a way to make people not angry, but continue to fo as much shady shit as they can.

  • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    “Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority…”

    The fact that this had to be stated is a testament to garbage leadership. Notice it’s not even the top priority, just a top priority. These guys will still get bonuses of course.

    • deweydecibel@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The security will definitely also take a very profitable shape. I.e. further locking the OS away from the user, more black box software, etc.

  • kippinitreal@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Microsoft focused on security at this point is like a builder focusing on building strong foundations now that the house is built on top.

    It’s a little too late my dudes.

  • 3volver@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Linux is great. It was initially concerning to migrate but overall I’m happy I did. I assume Microsoft will attempt to make things more incompatible and proprietary as a last chance attempt to hold onto users. Ultimate this will just lead to more people switching to Linux faster over time.

    • TheMediocreOne@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      There is no way a regular user will switch to Linux. And that is comming from me, who is an advocate for Linux desktop daily driver.

        • TheMediocreOne@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          Yes, they are. But there are still some issues and don’t get me started on MS Office which many people are used to. Belive me, that the true hill the Linux will die on. I tried to switch couple of people and they all refused because of the MS Office. And no, LibreOffice, nor OnlyOffice nor Google or MS online editors do not hit the mark sadly.

  • RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, “has taken on the responsibility personally to serve as the senior executive with overall accountability for Microsoft’s security,”

    Err. Wasn’t that already true? He’s chief executive officer, not chief some shit that doesn’t include security officer.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Rather than driving the industry forward with leadership and vision Microsoft is being driven by AI and Advertising fads that are self destructing facebook and google.

    Its clear its too late for Microsoft to do anything but lose trust at this point. If the outlook hacks and US government didnt cause them to rethink these terrible anti-privacy ideas then a bit of AI backlash won’t either. As soon as people look away they’ll start stuffing the OS with snoopware again.