A series of security reports published over the weekend have raised serious concerns about Microsoft’s transparency in the wake of a recent data breach.
A series of security reports published over the weekend have raised serious concerns about Microsoft’s transparency in the wake of a recent data breach.
On Saturday, TechCrunch reported that hackers had gained access to the company’s email service after compromising a customer support account. Microsoft has confirmed that a people using MSN.com, Hotmail.com, and Outlook.com accounts were affected, though it’s unclear how many.
The company contacted at least some affected users and assured them that the “content of any e-mails or attachments” had not been accessed. Regardless, it asked them to change their passwords.
The breach, Microsoft said in an email to some customers, was limited to some metadata, including folder names and email account names, plus some limited content, e.g., the subject lines of emails. In a statement to TechCrunch, it also described the number of accounts affected as “a limited subset of consumer accounts.”
One email to customers read, in part: “Our data indicates that account-related information (but not the content of any e-mails) could have been viewed, but Microsoft has no indication why that information was viewed or how it may have been used.
