Microsoft bigwig says the Feds catching Chinese spies in Exchange Online is the cloud working as intended
Lawmakers on Thursday grilled Microsoft president Brad Smith about the Windows giant's businesses dealing in China — and the super-corp's repeated security failings — at a time when Beijing-backed spies are accused of breaking into Microsoft-hosted email accounts of American government officials.
A US House committee hearing was held in response to the Homeland Security Cyber Safety Review Board's (CSRB) report which found that a "cascade of Microsoft's avoidable errors" allowed Beijing's Storm-0558 spy crew to steal tens of thousands of sensitive emails from the cloud-based Microsoft Exchange Online inboxes of US Secretary of Commerce and high-ranking officials at the Department of State, among others.
"Microsoft accepts responsibility for each and every one of the issues cited in the CSRB's report," Smith said in his opening statements before the House Committee on Homeland Security.
But then, in response to questioning, Smith also tried to say the fact that the US State Department — not Microsoft — discovered the digital intrusion into its officials' inboxes wasn't exactly a security failure on Redmond's part, but rather "the way it should work."
