Microsoft announced the end of utilizing China-based engineers for its cloud services supporting the Defense Department. A ProPublica investigation indicated that the practice posed significant security risks, allowing potential vulnerabilities to enter sensitive military systems. U.S.-based digital escorts, tasked with connecting these engineers to military infrastructure, lack the necessary technical skills to safely manage and evaluate code. In light of these findings, Microsoft has committed to ensuring that only U.S.-based teams provide technical assistance for these sensitive government services, prompted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's initiation of a review of existing engineering practices.
The IT servicing model - where the digital escorts serve as a go-between connecting foreign engineers' tech fixes to the systems that need patching - could open some of the most sensitive U.S. national security and military secrets to China, according to the report.
The digital escorts are U.S. citizens with security clearances who act as intermediaries between China-based Microsoft engineers and the Pentagon's cloud infrastructure.
Many escorts lack the technical expertise to evaluate the code they're entering, raising fears that they may unwittingly introduce vulnerabilities or malicious scripts into some of the government's most sensitive networks.
Microsoft has made changes to our support for U.S. government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DOD government cloud and related services.
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