Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) pressed the Defense Department on Thursday for information about Microsoft\u2019s reported use of Chinese engineers to help maintain the agency\u2019s computer systems. <\/p>\n
In a letter to<\/a> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cotton pointed to recent reporting from ProPublica indicating Microsoft relies on<\/a> Chinese engineers, who are overseen by U.S. citizens with security clearances known as \u201cdigital escorts.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhile this arrangement technically meets the requirement that U.S. citizens handle sensitive data, digital escorts often do not have the technical training or expertise needed to catch malicious code or suspicious behavior,\u201d Cotton wrote. <\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. government recognizes that China’s cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,\u201d he added. \u201cDoD must guard against all potential threats within its supply chain, including from those subcontractors.\u201d <\/p>\n The Arkansas Republican requested information from Hegseth about the Pentagon\u2019s contractors and subcontractors who hire Chinese personnel or digital escorts, as well as recommendations for closing loopholes in the security requirements for government cloud providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the face of these concerns, Microsoft announced Friday that it had made changes to ensure no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for Defense Department cloud services.<\/p>\n \u201cWe remain committed to providing the most secure services possible to the US government, including working with our national security partners to evaluate and adjust our security protocols as needed,\u201d Frank Shaw, Microsoft\u2019s chief communications officer, said in a statement.<\/p>\n China-linked hackers have been tied to numerous high-profile breaches in the U.S. over the past year. <\/p>\n The group known as Salt Typhoon has compromised at least nine telecommunications firms. One state’s National Guard network was also hacked for nearly a year, according to a recent memo from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by NBC News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Updated at 5:36 p.m. EDT<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) pressed the Defense Department on Thursday for information about Microsoft\u2019s reported use of Chinese engineers to help maintain the agency\u2019s computer systems. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cotton pointed to recent reporting from ProPublica indicating Microsoft relies on Chinese engineers, who are overseen by U.S. citizens with security […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}