- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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.
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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.
Lol. Considering it was senior management that ignored staff, this statement is even fucking dumber than it sounds.
"Of course, fixing these kinds of issues won’t push your product deadlines back at all. But we’ll be thankful to you! "
“Next week to improve employee morale we will have a pizza party” - Nadella, probably
Pick one:
- security
- proprietary OS
I mean what they have to do is obvious, right? Only one of these two options can help increase ad revenue.
My suggestion, based on more than three decades of observing and interacting with this company: don’t believe a fucking thing they say, ever.
If Microsoft cares so much about security, then WTF are they doing greenlighting a project like CoPilot / Recall?
If Microsoft cares so much about security
they don’t, this is all lip service
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.
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.
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.
Microsoft cares so much about security
Are you kidding? I’ve known Microsoft as a shitty software vendor that gives a rats ass about security for over 40 years now. Microsoft never has cared about security, it’s a running gag at this point
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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.
Thats what I did when win 7 support was ending, been very happy and there’s no way I’m going back to Windows.
“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.
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.
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.
Definitely wasn’t aware of that…
literally fired their entire AI Ethics team
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23638823/microsoft-ethics-society-team-responsible-ai-layoffs
It’s always one of the first things to get cut when companies try to save money.
Well I know companies are willing to terminate employees for the sake of keeping up profits or preventing the loss of a company, no doubt. But the fact that they terminated an entire department - AI Ethics. Which I have to only assume is not a good idea when you’re implementing a new technology that can definitely go out of control.
ai ethics teams are a joke. They deserve to get fired.
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.
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
This says everything about this shitty company. Worst of the worst. Because that’s how they make 90% of their cash. By exploiting licensing deals and siphoning data to sell to whomever because they do not care who it is so long as they bid the highest.
It’s amazing no one has tried to break up their control over PCs. Make this world make sense.
Too late, my office just switched to Linux.
…what? What kind of office do you work in that understands linux??? Most offices I’ve worked in don’t even understand the copier.
Software.
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.
You mean they have been letting it slip?
Seriously, why are governments using Microsoft software?
Don’t give me the nonsense line of “they need support”. There is support for Linux too, and Linux, sorry, works, is reliable and most importantly: a hell of a lot safer than windows. This is example #346269 where Microsoft not only fails to keep windows even remotely safe, but actively sabotaged their customers (in this case the US government) for their own profit.
And again, “wwheeeyyyrreee sooowwyyyy, pleeeaaasseeee forgif us?” Look! Look! Even our CEO will now be interested in secuwity!
Seriously I’m so tired of having to read this over and over and he government will just contoi to pump millions over millions into that piece of crap company.
Switch to Linux already and have computers that you can trust have no known issues that are not being resolved to cover for a few rich assholes!
Political leadership isn’t technically knowledgeable. It is focused on building large social networks of agreeable people. And Linux is an application by and for techies, not CEOs or social clubs. Consequently, when you’ve got six old white Harvard Alums in a room discussing how to run the country, one of them is going to be a Microsoft C-level and none of them are going to mention an alternative OS (except maybe Apple, in so far as they want their phone to magically integrate with a hostile OS rival).
Switch to Linux already and have computers that you can trust
A lot of these Microsoft features are about internal surveillance of staff and accumulating behavior patterns for future automation of service. This is not intended to be about building trust in the OS from the perspective of system security. Its more about finding patterns in human behavior that can be leveraged to reduce the size and pay-scale of your work force.
To that end, Microsoft is a highly valued partner while the Linux developers are an outright threat.
A much much larger proportion of users are computer illiterate, especially federal employees. On top of that, the vast majority of basic software applications used are the Microsoft suite of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. How do you
- Retrain an aging workforce to use a new OS.
- Retrain to use new software suite for email, docs, etc.
- Or rebuild existing software to run on Linux
- …there’s more but I’m short on time…
The ENTIRE US govt runs on Microsoft. That’s a very big pie to rebake. Where do you even begin. I do agree with you, it just feels unsurmountable.
Ms has always been a shitty company, from the time it was formed
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.
