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.

  • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world
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    19 days 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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      19 days 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.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Don’t take any of their words for granted. They know exactly what they’ve been doing, and what they’re doing now

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Why in the absolute fuuuuuck would a “secure” computer with sensitive data be running motherfucking Windows?! Linux is easy enough for pretty much any Windows user in an office environment to handle these days. There’s just no excuse for sensitive business to ever be done on Windows at this point.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      18 days ago

      The company I work at “supports” Linux in the sense that you’re allowed to use Linux but then you’re essentially on your own when it comes to solving problems. I asked why there’s no proper Linux support and the short answer was “it’s too much trouble”. The long answer was “don’t ask. I don’t want to get into it”.

      So my guess is that setting up a company wide policies and support for Linux is significantly more work than it is for Windows or Mac.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    19 days ago

    Things like this that make me wish we still had the pillory punishment.

    Look at his smug little smile. He knows they are not going to do shit. The smile would fade quickly if he faced 6 hours locked up being pelted with rotting vegetables and fruit in 90° heat.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    19 days 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.

  • 3volver@lemmy.world
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    18 days 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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      18 days 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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          18 days 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.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            18 days ago

            You can’t play Helldivers 2 because of the anti cheat it has. Also some what less importantly it can run any of my work software. Now, I could dual boot but this a pain to deal with because now I have to swap OS’s depending on what software I want to run.

            • 3volver@lemmy.world
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              18 days ago

              You can’t play Helldivers 2 because of the anti cheat it has.

              Wrong, entirely. I have played Helldivers 2 on Linux Mint using Proton Experimental compatibility through steam.

            • pantherfarber@lemmings.world
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              18 days ago

              Helldivers works fine. Sometimes its anticheat complains but most of the time when that happens it launches and works anyway or you kill it and start again and it works.

              • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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                18 days ago

                I could not get it to load up. The game would load but the anti cheat just refused to run, and then I couldn’t connect.

            • QuantumSoul@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              18 days ago

              Those anticheats are so annoying. You can play brawlhalla on linux but since they added EAC you often can’t play offline because of random updates

            • sep@lemmy.world
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              18 days ago

              Never been an issue for me debian+kde+steam it started right up the first time i tried. No tweaking needed.

        • DefederateLemmyMl@feddit.nl
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          18 days ago

          I’d say the problem with Linux is not so much with beginner users, it’s easy enough to setup a basic desktop with a web browser and some tools, but with intermediate users who know enough to be dangerous on Windows and think that makes them “advanced”, who then can’t apply their clickety clackety ways of figuring things out on Linux.

  • 299792458ms@lemmy.zip
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    18 days ago

    This is like that psychopath GF that lies and pushes you around to test your limits with the evil plan to manipulate you. Every once in a while you can complain about her behavior and then she will bombard you with fake love and forgiveness to push later in the future again.

  • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    19 days ago

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

    Didn’t they already do that a decade or two ago??

  • ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    So they lied und tried to cover it up, which led to the largest cyber attack ever. There’s going to be serious punishment, right? Right?

    • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      (⁀ᗢ⁀) hahahaha

      Oh, shit haha! I thought you were serious for a second. Can you imagine if we ever held a corporation accountable for the damage they’ve caused? I mean it obviously can’t happen, but wow! You had me for a second!

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Question is: For how long? Security costs money, AI brings profits (in several ways).

    At the moment they are making a big production of caring for the user. Which they basically never did, actually. They are only as pro user as they have to to improve their profits. Just wait until the shareholders reign them in because they want the company to extract more money out of the customers victims.