7/5/2023 0 Comments Friends monopoly![]() "Our teams process and share up to 65 trillion cyber signals a day in order to enhance the security baseline for government and commercial entities. In a statement to Newsweek, Microsoft said it was best placed to defend its own products because of the huge amount of data it can draw on from its billions of users all over the world. He disputed the suggestion that using Microsoft security tools to protect Microsoft software would make the DOD more vulnerable, saying tools that were built from the ground up to integrate with the software they were protecting would be more secure. ![]() "Microsoft Defender will provide DOD an integrated cybersecurity solution that promises to satisfy most, if not all, of the capabilities we require" to secure the military's networks, he said via email. Now, the department will use Microsoft Defender-a set of cybersecurity tools bundled with the company's higher-end software licenses-as well, Deputy CIO David McKeown, one of the Defense Department's top cyber officials, confirmed to Newsweek. And most of its 2.1 million active duty and reserve military personnel and 750,000 civilian employees use Microsoft programs such as Outlook or Office for email, calendar, word processing and other administrative tasks. Since 2017, DOD has exclusively used the Microsoft Windows operating system on all its four million-plus desktop computers and is increasingly employing Microsoft's Azure cloud computing services. The Defense Department's IT network, one of the largest in the world, was already a poster child for what cyber experts call the Microsoft monoculture-an IT environment in which everyone uses the same software, meaning they are all potentially vulnerable to the same cyberattacks. "You don't really get to argue that," said the former official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The former official said the assessment was a decisive factor behind the decision because everyone understood it could have been informed by undisclosed secret intelligence. The NSA declined to provide Newsweek with a copy of the assessment or to comment. In 20, users of the Navy Marine Corps Internet were among the first military personnel to pilot the new Microsoft monoculture through the Flank Speed program. Marine with the FET (Female Engagement Team) 1st Battalion 8th Marines, Regimental Combat Team II, hangs out in the barracks working on her laptop on November 12, 2010, in Musa Qala, Afghanistan. The incident, unreported except by the cybersecurity trade press, illustrates what experts say are the dangers of relying exclusively on Microsoft IT.ĭOD's decision to push ahead with the move to Microsoft security tools, based on an assessment from the National Security Agency, has cast a new light on long-standing questions about the security of the software produced by the Redmond, Wash.-based technology giant, and the impact of its dominance in government technology markets. It could also run counter to the White House's new cybersecurity strategy, which calls on software companies to offer secure products in the first place rather than selling additional security measures on top. ![]() ![]() The potential risks were laid bare in March, when it was revealed that hackers suspected to be from Russian military intelligence had been stealthily exploiting a vulnerability in Outlook, Microsoft's email program, for almost a year. A lot of us were, for the same reason: It felt like we were further embedding ourselves into this monopolistic (Microsoft) monoculture." They were concerned about the department's growing reliance on a single software vendor: "I was completely against it. Department of Defense is quietly abandoning one of its longest running cybersecurity programs protecting its vast global IT network, and replacing it with off-the-shelf tools from Microsoft, despite internal opposition and criticism from experts who say it will make the nation more vulnerable to foreign hackers, enemy cyberwarriors and online spies, Newsweek has learned.Īt a series of meetings with DOD Chief Information Officer John Sherman last fall, as the department's fiscal year 2024 budget request was being finalized, a clear majority of senior IT leaders from the military services opposed the move, a former senior defense official directly involved told Newsweek. ![]()
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