In a recent statement, Jeanette Manfra, chief compliance officer at Google and former top cybersecurity official in the United States, said valued than the relationship between the US government and Microsoft could constitute “a permanent threat to the security of the country”.
Google warns the US government
For many years, Google and Microsoft have been America’s two biggest rivals. They compete for several markets, in particular that of the cloud. As part of this statement, Jeanette Manfra cited a survey commissioned by Google on this subject. According to the Chief Compliance Officer, “a majority of federal employees believe that the government’s reliance on Microsoft products is a cybersecurity vulnerability”. According to her, successive governments in recent years have had an excessive dependence with respect to a single supplier and she thinks that “It’s usually not a good idea”.
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She clarifies her remarks by explaining that if “you have an attack on a product that the majority of the government depends on to do its job, there is a significant risk in the way the government can continue to operate”. On paper, that’s not wrong. The survey was conducted among 2,600 people inside and outside government, by the polling institute Public Opinion Strategies. For several weeks, Google has clearly stepped up its efforts to try to challenge the relationship between Microsoft and the government. It must be said that the Redmond firm largely dominates the subject. An investigation released while numerous vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s products are being revealed.
Most government agencies use Windows and Office
Indeed, last year Microsoft Exchange was the victim of a hack orchestrated by the Hafnium group. Chinese hackers had at the time compromised the security of thousands of Microsoft messaging service servers. It was a flaw “zero day”. This flaw in Exchange was later exploited by other cybercriminals, including Russians. Earlier in the year, the SolarWinds hack allowed hackers reach US Department of Justice emails, due to a security flaw in Microsoft 365. Google is also using this case to lend weight to its argument. It must be recognized that Microsoft has been the target of Russian and Chinese hackers for several years.
Jeanette Manfra joined Google after leading the branch of the Ministry of Homeland Security, which has since become the Agency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security. Frank Shaw, Microsoft VP in charge of communication, attacked Google after the publication of this study. He considers it unnecessary to “creating divisions within the cybersecurity community at a time when we should all be working together and on high alert”. In its attacks, Google mainly targets Windows from Microsoft, which has long been the most popular computer system within government agencies almost all of which are based on it and on Microsoft Office.