New York [US], July 19: Microsoft Corp. said on July 18 it would stop using engineers in China to provide technical support to the U.S. military after a report prompted the U.S. Defense Secretary to suddenly request an audit of the Pentagon's cloud computing deals.The move followed a ProPublica investigation detailing Microsoft 's use of engineers in China to work on US military cloud computing systems under the watchful eye of US "digital monitors", Reuters reported on July 19.
These supervisors were hired through subcontractors who were given security clearances, meaning they had been vetted and found to be qualified to access classified information. However, they were said to lack the technical skills to assess whether the work of engineers in China posed a cybersecurity threat.
Microsoft confirmed to ProPublica that it had made its practices clear to the U.S. government during the licensing process. Microsoft, a major contractor for the U.S. government, has been repeatedly breached by Chinese and Russian hackers.
On July 18, Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw wrote on the social network X that the company had changed the way it supports US government customers "in response to concerns raised earlier this week... to ensure that no engineering teams in China are involved in the process of providing technical support" for services used by the Pentagon.
Earlier on July 18, Senator Tom Cotton, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about Microsoft's practices, as reported by ProPublica .
Senator Cotton asked the US military to provide a list of contractors using Chinese employees and provide information on training US "digital monitors" to promptly detect suspicious activity.
Later that day, Secretary Hegseth announced on X that he had directed a two-week review to ensure that no engineers in China were working on cloud computing contracts at the Pentagon.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
