Microsoft (and others), exploits, bugs and spying
2013-06-21 16:30:56.17461+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments
Bloomberg: U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms.
Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.
ComputerworldUK: Glyn Moody: How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?:
The implications of this are really rather profound. Companies buy Microsoft products for many reasons, but they all assume that the company is doing its best to protect them. The latest revelations shows that is a false assumption: Microsoft consciously and regularly passes on information about how to break into its products to US agencies. What happens to that information thereafter is, of course, a secret. Not because of "terrorism", but because almost certainly illegal attacks are being made against countries outside the US, and their companies.
This may also be why some of those exploits seem to languish for so long...