Former Microsoft Security Analyst Claims Office 365 Knowingly Hosted Malware For Years
On Friday, cybersecurity researcher TheAnalyst explained on Twitter how BazarLoader malware leads to ransomware that can severely affect healthcare, among other industries. He then called out Microsoft, asking if the company has “any responsibility in this when they KNOWINGLY are hosting hundreds of files leading to this,” alongside an image of what appears to be malicious files being hosted in OneDrive.
To back this up, former Microsoft security analyst Kevin Beaumont replied, saying that Microsoft cannot call itself a security leader due to Office365 and OneDrive abuse happening for years. He continued, explaining that getting things taken down from OneDrive is a nightmare process with rather slow reaction times, making Microsoft the “world’s best malware hoster for about a decade, due to O365.”
However, this is not a Microsoft-exclusive problem nor a new issue, as we have seen malware hosted on other platforms in the past. According to research by the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Google and Cloudflare are currently among the top online malware hosting networks. As such, the entire tech industry needs to be better about finding malicious content hosted on its servers before looking elsewhere for problems.
In any event, hopefully, this incident will drive Microsoft to decisive action that can help protect millions of people and thousands of organizations from debilitating malware attacks. However, let us know what you make of this entire situation in the comments below.