Microsoft changes support policy for US government customers after 'national security threatening report': 'No China-based engineering teams...'
Microsoft
has introduced changes to its support policy for US government customers. The tech giant has confirmed that "no
China-based engineering teams
" will provide technical support for US defence clients using its cloud services. This revision follows a report by ProPublica that detailed the US Defence Department's reliance on Microsoft-hired software engineers who are based in China. The report also prompted US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) to send a letter to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth seeking details of the tech giant's alleged use of Chinese engineers for US military systems, as it raised concerns about potential national security risks.
What Microsoft said about changing its US government customer policy
In a post shared on the social media platform X (earlier Twitter), Frank Shaw, Microsoft's chief communications officer, wrote:
'In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services.
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We 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.'
The ProPublica report noted that Microsoft's Chinese Azure engineers are supervised by US-based 'digital escorts,' who often have less technical expertise than the overseas engineers they oversee. The report suggested that this setup could expose the US to potential
cyber threats from China
.
In a recent video posted on X, Hegseth signed a memo for a review to check if cheap Chinese labour is being used in any other parts of the Defence Department. In the video, he said:
'
Earlier this week, we were alerted to a potential vulnerability in our DOD computer systems, and we've been checking into it ever since. It turns out that some tech companies have been using cheap Chinese labour to assist with DOD cloud services.
This is obviously unacceptable, especially in today's digital threat environment. Now, this was a legacy system created over a decade ago during the Obama Administration, but we have to ensure the digital systems that we use here at the Defence Department are ironclad and impenetrable, and that's why, today, I'm announcing that China will no longer have any involvement whatsoever in our cloud services effective immediately.
And at my direction, the department will also initiate as fast as we can. A two-week review or faster to make sure that what we uncovered isn't happening anywhere else across the DoD. We will continue to monitor and counter all threats to our military infrastructure and online networks.'
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