Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unwarranted Media Hysteria Over (Allegedly) China Almost Sneaking Compromised xz Into Stable, Production Operating Systems (It Failed) While the US Government Blames Microsoft for Allowing China to Break Into Vital Government Systems Via Windows

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 03, 2024

Shifting attention much, Microsoft-funded media? Microsoft: my dog ate my homework. So what if our whole internal infrastructure and all of Azure got compromised? "LOOK OVA' THAR!"

Beautiful white and brown dog lying under the table

THIS morning we wrote about how nearly 2 decades ago rms (Richard Stallman), who had given public talks about GNU since the mid-80s, warned that proprietary operating systems like Windows were a "back door" threat and, to make matters worse, you would not even know, no matter if that got detected or not (this already happened to Microsoft) [1, 2].

The "mainstream" (corporate, advertisers-funded and typically oligarch-owned) media won't mention any of this and instead it has helped distract from severe Microsoft Exchange issues. There is now a follow-up (see [1-4] below), but the media is shifting attention to "Linux" and it blames "Open Source" because some random user on Microsoft's GitHub (proprietary) pulled off a social engineering attack, aided by Microsoft systemd (also GitHub) and made "famous" by a Microsoft employee.

"Not only is there the 17k Microsoft Exchange server problem," an associate notes this morning, "but there is also the recent report excoriating Microsoft over its mishandling of the China-origin breach of its infrastructure."

See the links below.

"Allegedly" in the title of this post is because (while China is confirmed for the Microsoft breach) we don't even know what happened to xz. GitHub (Microsoft) makes it harder by hiding the evidence. The issue here or the culprit remains unattributed, an associate has said. "Red China is as likely as Israel, Russia, Netherlands, or US."

"However, in the other break-in [Microsoft], it is directly attributable to Red China."

Funnily enough, the corruptible media portrays the source of the FUD, Microsoft, as the saviour here. As if a campaign of misinformation or strategically-timed drama is something to be commended/praised for.

We're collectively paying the price for having very bad media/press. Media standards in the West have fallen closer to Red China's levels.

  1. Scathing federal report rips Microsoft for shoddy security, insincerity in response to Chinese hack

    In a scathing indictment of Microsoft corporate security and transparency, a Biden administration-appointed review board issued a report Tuesday saying “a cascade of errors” by the tech giant let state-backed Chinese cyber operators break into email accounts of senior U.S. officials including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

    The Cyber Safety Review Board, created in 2021 by executive order, describes shoddy cybersecurity practices, a lax corporate culture and a lack of sincerity about the company's knowledge of the targeted breach, which affected multiple U.S. agencies that deal with China.

  2. Cyber review board blames cascading Microsoft failures for Chinese hack

    The CSRB lays the blame for the incident squarely on Microsoft: “The Board concludes that this intrusion should never have happened. Storm-0558 was able to succeed because of a cascade of security failures at Microsoft.”

    The report represents the conclusion of a seven-month review and comes against the backdrop of growing concern in Washington that a series of severe breaches at Microsoft has made the company a national-security liability at a time when the federal government is increasingly relying on that company for a raft of cloud computing services. In January, Microsoft disclosed the latest such incident, in which Russian hackers were able to access emails belonging to senior company officials and company source code.

  3. Microsoft slammed for lax infosec that led to Exchange crack

    A review of the June 2023 attack on Microsoft's Exchange Online hosted email service – which saw accounts used by senior US officials compromised by a China-linked group called "Storm-0558" – has found that the incident would have been preventable save for Microsoft's lax infosec culture and sub-par cloud security precautions.

    The review, conducted by the US government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), calls for "rapid cultural change" at Microsoft. Among the Board's recommendations: [...]

  4. Review of the Summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online Intrusion [PDF]

    In May and June 2023, a threat actor compromised the Microsoft Exchange Online mailboxes of 22 organizations and over 500 individuals around the world. The actor—known as Storm-0558 and assessed to be affiliated with the People’s Republic of China in pursuit of espionage objectives—accessed the accounts using authentication tokens that were signed by a key Microsoft had created in 2016. This intrusion compromised senior United States government representatives working on national security matters, including the email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, United States Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China R. Nicholas Burns, and Congressman Don Bacon.

    Signing keys, used for secure authentication into remote systems, are the cryptographic equivalent of crown jewels for any cloud service provider. As occurred in the course of this incident, an adversary in possession of a valid signing key can grant itself permission to access any information or systems within that key’s domain. A single key’s reach can be enormous, and in this case the stolen key had extraordinary power. In fact, when combined with another flaw in Microsoft’s authentication system, the key permitted Storm-0558 to gain full access to essentially any Exchange Online account anywhere in the world. As of the date of this report, Microsoft does not know how or when Storm-0558 obtained the signing key.

    This was not the first intrusion perpetrated by Storm-0558, nor is it the first time Storm-0558 displayed interest in compromising cloud providers or stealing authentication keys. Industry links Storm-0558 to the 2009 Operation Aurora campaign that targeted over two dozen companies, including Google, and the 2011 RSA SecurID incident, in which the actor stole secret keys used to generate authentication codes for SecurID tokens, which were used by tens of millions of users at that time. Indeed, security researchers have tracked Storm-0558’s activities for over 20 years.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

End of the Smartphone Era? No.
Maybe the media should focus on producing accurate, factual news
Slopwatch: Sites Gone Rogue, Google Promoting Lies, and DDoS Attacks by Plagiarism Giants
Charlatans and frauds engage in a war against artistic industries, mislabeling plagiarism as "AI"
Latest Is Not Greatest: The Case of "Foldable" Tech
don't be shamed into abandoning old things just because the "fashion industry" of Apple and Samsung tells you to
Gemini Links 21/08/2025: The Attraction of Back Alleys, Initramfs, and BSD ISPs
Links for the day
 
The "End Software Patents" Initiative of the FSF Explains "WHY [to] ABOLISH SOFTWARE PATENTS"
We hope to cover patent-related issues more and more as the big anniversary of the FSF approaches
This Saturday It's Gonna be 3.5 Years Since Russia Invaded Ukraine. No Microsoft Protests Against Microsoft Having Provided Russia With Services.
Companies do not have consistent policies and enforcement of "corporate values" is somewhat of an egg salad
Freenode Sniffing
The grown-ups left the building
The Only Thing Worse Than Misinformation is Misinformation Sold to Everyone as "Intelligence"
Misplaced trust is worse than none at all
The Register MS Now Openly Admits LLM Hype Does Damage, But It's Also Being Paid to Participate in the LLM Hype (With Paid 'Articles' and 'Webcasts' for Paying Advertisers)
The Register MS gets paid to do this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 21, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 21, 2025
Enshittification of Airports, Airlines, and Airplanes
If people are willing to tolerate standard declines and enshittification (nowadays sold as "pivot to AI" or "replaced by AI" or "AI layoffs") they will pay for it some other way
Airlines and Their Tricks That Only Work in the 'Digital Age'
People sceptical of the direction technology has taken are not "Luddites"
Open Source Initiative (OSI), Which Became a Propaganda Front of Microsoft and "Hey Hi" (Hype, Misnomer), Wants You to Forget These Scandals
A lot of these issues won't be set aside until there's a resolution
The Culture of Overnight Coding
An industry-wise push-back is needed
Windows Down to New Lows in Guinea Bissau and Many Countries Around It
If Android is accounted for, Windows is down to about 10%
Gemini Links 21/08/2025: Modern Dating, Debian 13, and Apache
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Had About 10 Waves of Mass Layoffs So Far This Year (Not Two as Mainstream Media and Slopfarms Endlessly Claim)
Notice how the MSM (Mainstream Media) never mentions the debt of Microsoft. It is a conscious, deliberate decision.
Links 21/08/2025: Covid Cases on the Rise, "Social Media Trolls", Russia's Attacks Intensify
Links for the day
Links 21/08/2025: Stephanie Shirley Dies and "Groklaw Domain Hijacked?"
Links for the day
Search in 2025 (Age of DDoS Attacks Under the Guise of "AI" "Innovation")
One common concern when things go "live" is that any random bot out there can execute queries, pumping up RAM and CPU usage, as happened when we used MediaWiki and WordPress
Using Slop for Images Does Not Make Your Site Look Advanced or Witty, It Just Makes Your Whole Work Look Like Presumed Plagiarism
Lazy slobs and Serial Sloppers use the guise/excuse of "AI" to plagiarise and spam the Web
Financing of the "Hey Hi" (AI) Bubble by Those Who Profit From Planetary Destruction (Global Warming)
It's about personal gain, too
Richard Stallman Will Speak in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress
it's good to see that the FSF pays considerable respect to it founder, who is moreover invited to speak at events
(At Least) Second Wave of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft This Month
This is not the first time this month that Microsoft has mass layoffs
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 20, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 20, 2025
IBM Operatives Inside The Register MS and More Shady Money to Follow
The Register MS bites every banknote it can sink its teeth into
On the Internet, Nobody Knows Microsoft and Windows Are Becoming Niche Players Until Data is Shown Correctly, Not Microsoft-Sponsored Articles in Microsoft Publishers
Microsoft controls a lot of publishers and thus it controls information
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers and Slopfarms in Google News (e.g. Linux Journal and WebProNews)
Google plays an active role (if not deliberately then through utter neglect and carelessness) in plagiarism
Links 20/08/2025: Mass Surveillance Framed as "Artificial Intelligence" (All Old Things Reworded to Misframe Old Computer Issues), Europe Resists Capitulation to US(SR)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/08/2025: Trips and Permacomputing
Links for the day
Links 20/08/2025: Oracle Layoffs in India, "AI" Scammers/Profiteers Admit It's a "Bubble", Softbank-Saudi (Oil) Control Tech Companies
Links for the day
Social Control Networks Give You False Metrics to 'Addict' You To Them
Leaving social control media may seem hard, but the same is true for any other addiction
A Lot of What Happened in Twitter Was Bots, Botfarms, and Troll Farms. It's Even Worse Now (Under X.com) and People Are Noticing.
Last month we said the same was happening in YouTube
Microsoft May Have Become - at Least Partially - Like a Boiler Room Scam
Giving imaginary salaries using imaginary tokens based on imaginary value (with restrictions on conversion to cash)
In Vietnam, Microsoft's Search Engine "Market Share" Fell to Almost 0%, CocCoc More Than 5 Times Bigger
Why are people still investing in this company?
All That's Left of MSNBC (Microsoft-NBC) is Microsoft NOW
When plutocrats and large corporations (even deep in debt) buy all the communication channels
The Register MS, Paid to Promote "AI" Hype, Does "Sez" (Says) Pieces
every bubble-funded "news" site tries to make it a story about "AI"
Many Companies Are Run by Liars Who Ride Other People's Money
Or steal it
Before CoreAI There Was Builder.ai
GitHub isn't about "AI" (just a bunch of lies and storytelling for shareholders' patience)
Microsoft Windows in Croatia at New Lows
We've been keeping track of this trend for a while
Using the Best Tool/s for the Job: RSS Feeds and RSS Readers
Use RSS feeds. Reject those "modern" Web things
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 19, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/08/2025: Neovim, XML, and Alhena 5.2.9
Links for the day