“Microsoft Corp’s secret internal database for tracking bugs in its own software was broken into by a highly sophisticated hacking group more than four years ago, according to five former employees, in only the second known breach of such a corporate database,” Joseph Menn reports for Reuters. “The company did not disclose the extent of the attack to the public or its customers after its discovery in 2013, but the five former employees described it to Reuters in separate interviews. Microsoft declined to discuss the incident.”
“The database contained descriptions of critical and unfixed vulnerabilities in some of the most widely used software in the world, including the Windows operating system,” Menn reports. “Spies for governments around the globe and other hackers covet such information because it shows them how to create tools for electronic break-ins.”
“The Microsoft flaws were fixed likely within months of the hack, according to the former employees. Yet speaking out for the first time, these former employees as well as U.S. officials informed of the breach by Reuters said it alarmed them because the hackers could have used the data at the time to mount attacks elsewhere, spreading their reach into government and corporate networks,” Menn reports. “Microsoft discovered the database breach in early 2013 after a highly skilled hacking group broke into computers at a number of major tech companies, including Apple Inc, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.”
“More than a week after stories about the breaches first appeared in 2013, Microsoft published a brief statement that portrayed its own break-in as limited and made no reference to the bug database,” Menn reports. “‘As reported by Facebook and Apple, Microsoft can confirm that we also recently experienced a similar security intrusion,’ the company said on Feb. 22, 2013.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft is deceitful. Shocker.
The only good news is that anybody trying to use a Windows PC already expects it to be an insecure hackers paradise.
BTW: As we don’t know what was taken in Microsoft’s undisclosed software vulnerabilities database hack, we don’t know if this is related, but Target’s Windows-based terminals were infected with malware in 2013 which resulted in a massive data breach affecting at least 70 million people.
SEE ALSO:
Massive data breach: Target’s Windows-based PoS terminals were infected with malware – January 13, 2014
Target debacle: Retailer now says 70 million people hit in massive data breach – January 10, 2014
NY Apple thefts eyed in Target’s nationwide credit breach – December 20, 2013
Target hit by massive credit-card breach – December 19, 2013
Fixed within months?? BS.
Just a reminder. All ATMs run Windows. Who knows what version? Feel safer now?
Lyin’ Ted
Windows XP is on GB battleships.
US battleships use Windows. “The U.S. Navy still uses Windows XP operating system as of June 2017.
Windows was on Hillary’s servers.
BS. Hillary’s team used a Mac. Trump’s companies use windows and android. Fact.
I was convinced by what you said until the last word you wrote.
Everybody knows that when you write something and want to prove that it’s indisputably true, you must write the F word in upper case.
FACT
Trump himself used an Android before becoming president. He was switched to an iPhone on Inauguration Day, just as Obama was switched from his Blackberry. I can find no confirmation as to whether Trump’s campaign group used exclusively Windows PCs; I suspect it was a mixture of both Macs and PCs — which is probably the same for Hillary’s campaign group.
Hillary’s now-infamous email server was indeed a Mac (this is the computer whose hard drive was erased). When asked about her email server by reporters from both CNN and Fox News, the exchange was this:
Reporter: “Did you wipe the hard drive?”
Hillary: “What, like with a cloth or something?”
This is an exact quote (it’s available on YouTube).