Microsoft became the world’s biggest seller of cybersecurity software by bundling it with Office and Teams apps. But after a series of hacks exploited that software in the past year, several of Microsoft’s biggest customers are considering whether their reliance on Microsoft’s software bundle puts their security at risk.
The clearest sign that Microsoft may face real consequences for its security lapses can be seen in Washington. After the company disclosed last summer that Chinese hackers had broken into customers’ systems, including the U.S. State Department’s, the agency began to move its stored data into servers of other cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, according to a technical adviser to the agency and an executive at one of the rival companies. And the agency has been discussing possible bigger cloud deals with those rivals, these people said.