Bonum Certa Men Certa

Home Depot Confirmed a Victim of Microsoft's Bad Security, Microsoft Lays Off Security-Related Staff

Summary: News reports circulate showing that Home Depot was knowingly careless with its Windows dependency while Microsoft lays off staff focused on security

Microsoft is not a company that cares about security. It seems to care about the security state (i.e. surveillance), which is why it makes its products so easy to infiltrate (by the "Good Guys"). As we showed before, Microsoft's layoffs focus in part on security-related staff, or staff that's associated with security state type of stuff (restricting operation of computers, back doors, etc.).



Microsoft uses secrecy as a weapon against fear-induced exodus because layoffs are company-wide and it's not about Nokia but about parts of the company which Microsoft would rather keep secret. To quote one source:

In a statement sent to Channelnomics sister-site CRN UK, Microsoft said the staff reductions in the latest round have been “spread across many business units and many different countries”, but did not go into specifics as to where it is swinging the ax.


"Trustworthy Computing group" is one of the affected units, based on Seattle-based press. Reportedly, according to this press (heavily biased in Microsoft's favour), the group was "folding into other units". It's a clever and rather classic way to disguise layoffs (like the term "reorg"). "A spokesman confirmed that an unspecified number of jobs are being eliminated from the Trustworthy Computing group as part of the changes," said the report that we cited last week. So by "folding into other units" he basically meant "layoffs".

It is rather amazing that given all that is known, some businesses and even governments continue to procure and/or purchase more stuff from Microsoft. It's worse than irresponsible, it's suicidal. Ask Home Depot why it should not be using Windows anymore. According to reports such as [1], this retailer faces a massive security breach and it's all the fault of Windows. Staff knew about it and also ignored the issues. It makes it both irresponsible and suicidal. The company's name is now tarnished.

Increasingly here in the UK I see businesses that move to Free software and GNU/Linux, usually for security reasons, not just cost savings (the migration itself can be pricey). Some months ago staff at Ryman (a large UK chain) told me that they had moved from Windows to Ubuntu GNU/Linux due to virus infections.

Now that Microsoft is eliminating security jobs people will hopefully realise that Windows security is not improving. It's only going to get worse. Time to move to GNU/Linux...

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Home Depot ignored security warnings for years, employees say
    Former information technology employees at Home Depot claim that the retailer’s management had been warned for years that its retail systems were vulnerable to attack, according to a report by the New York Times. Resistance to advice on fixing systems reportedly led several members of Home Depot’s computer security team to quit, and one who remained warned friends to use cash when shopping at the retailer’s stores.


Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025