Mike Isaac

Recent Posts by Mike Isaac

Microsoft Hacked, Just Like Facebook and Apple

On Friday evening, Microsoft announced via its security blog that it, too, had been the victim of a cyber attack, comparing its situation to the likes of Facebook’s and Apple’s recent security breaches.

“During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit, that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations,” wrote Matt Thomlinson, General Manager of Trustworthy Computing Security, in a company post.

Microsoft claims no evidence of customer data being compromised.

The security breach of the Redmond-based software company is just one in a series of high-profile tech company hacks, starting earlier this month with Twitter’s announcement that the data of some 250,000 user accounts could potentially have been compromised.

As we reported earlier in the week, laptops belonging to employees at Facebook, Apple and possibly Twitter were infected with malware after visiting an iPhone-focused software developer site. Sources have told AllThingsD that many other companies could have been infected by the malware-spreading site, and perhaps many more will disclose similar instances of hacking in the coming weeks.

And just yesterday, customer service management provider ZenDesk announced that it had been hacked as well. The fallout from that hack affected some of the companies ZenDesk provides its services to, including Pinterest, Twitter and Tumblr.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for further comment.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik