Представництво Microsoft у Пекіні / Вікіпедія
Microsoft’s Digital Escort program has come under a barrage of criticism. It seems that its employees were not professional enough in their duties due to lack of qualifications.
The main task of the Digital Escort program is to supervise the actions of employees from other countries in important areas of activity. At the same time, only American specialists have the right to perform the supervision itself, which they did. But because the world is not perfect, a scandal recently broke out in this chain. Current and former Microsoft program monitors told an independent journalism organization ProPublica (USA) about their low qualifications. The information refers to a lack of technical training and knowledge about digital cloud storage. And some of them were hired simply because of their security clearances.
This discrepancy turned into a «slight» concern for national security experts, and they began to sound the alarm. At a time when the storage facilities with confidential military information are used by foreign employees, they are essentially being monitored in a shoddy manner.
Michael Lucci, the founder of State Armor Action, did not hold back:
«If these allegations are true, the federal government should never again rely on Microsoft to protect the data of our men and women in uniform.
Microsoft claims that there is nothing wrong with the program. Only biographically verified, privileged users have access to it. In its defense, the company adds a multi-level structure, monitoring tools, and federal audits such as FedRAMP.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has defused the situation a bit. They stated that digital support is only used in certain secure environments and only for troubleshooting.
Nevertheless, the security department is calling on the company to reassess the situation, because of China’s cyber capabilitiesThe risks are growing. Because in 2023, Chinese hackers have already hacked into American military cloud systems. And because of latest events in the worldIn general, any access from abroad, especially through contractors, should be well protected and tightly controlled.
Source: Windows Report