Manasi VarmaA former Microsoft security analyst has claimed that Office 365 knowingly hosted malware on its service for years. This comes even as cybersecurity researcher TheAnalyst has said on Twitter that the BazarLoader malware can lead to ransomware which can affect the healthcare industry, among others.
World’s Best Malware Hoster
Following this outline, he has proceeded to call out Microsoft by asking if the company has “any responsibility in this,” seeing as how it “knowingly” has been hosting a number of files that can lead to the problem. The malicious files are apparently hosted in OneDrive.
TheAnalyst’s claims are now being backed by Kevin Beaumont, a former security analyst at Microsoft, who has come forward forward say that the tech giant doesn’t hold the right to call itself a “security leader,” since both OneDrive and Office 365 are being abused for years, despite its security employee workforce spanning as many as 8000 workers, and “trillions of signals.”
He has gone on to say that taking things down from OneDrive is nothing short of a nightmare, since it’s so slow, further fueling Microsoft’s position as the “world’s best malware hoster for about a decade due to O365.”
Google, Cloudfare Among top Malware Hosting Networks
Image Credits: Nicolas Economou via Getty Images
At the same time, the problem is not limited only to Microsoft, since research that has been conducted by the Bern University of Applies Sciences has found that Cloudfare and Google are among the top networks for online hosting of malware. Apart from these two, the list also includes China’s China Unicom and ChinaNet, India’s Hathway Net, MTNL and BSNL, among others.
As such, it won’t be fair to simply blame Microsoft, and rather, the need of the hour is to hold the entire tech industry accountable.
The United States has had a tough year dealing with ransomware attacks, even as the Biden administration has vowed to improve the state of things. Earlier this year, Colonial Pipeline was hacked by the group DarkSide, and it was among the first instances of ransomware attacks in 2021. Countries like Russia and, to some extent, China have been implicated by the White House in facilitating such attacks and backing the cybercriminals, and POTUS Joe Biden has pledged to take strict actions against the perpetrators, even as lawmakers continue to discuss legislative reforms that could make it harder for threat actors to gain access to systems important for tje country’s national security.
Source: Hot Hardware