Cyber Attack Kept Secret from Public by Microsoft for Years

Not the first news of this nature but it was very recently discovered that Microsoft suffered a cyber attack from a group of very intelligent hackers way back in 2013. Cyber attacks happen but to think a major attack like this one can be kept secret for long is just plain ridiculous. Nevertheless, Microsoft did manage to keep it secret for several years, until a few former employees decided to come forward.

5 former employees of Microsoft dished out the dirty details about the breach. In 2013, a group of hackers known by several different names including Wild Neutron, Butterfly and Morpho, successfully breached Microsoft’s system. They were able to quickly identify vulnerabilities and bugs within the system that pertained to hundreds of programs distributed by Microsoft.

The company has since denied that any cyber attacks suffered in the future by others are directly connected to the 2013 data breach. They have claimed that there is no proof that points the finger of blame on the stolen data from the breach being used for other attacks.

True, there is no direct proof of the accusation but it stands to reason that the valuable data stolen in the 2013 Microsoft breach wasn’t really available anywhere else. Experts have warned that the data stolen could be used to hack countless computers worldwide, which may have already occurred for all we know but again, there is no proof to that.

Microsoft did catch the breach rather quickly though and spent a lot of time afterwards adding more security to prevent another attack in the future. As for the public, it’s safe to say we would have benefited from knowing when the attack occurred and how serious it was. How can we protect ourselves if we aren’t informed about the initial threat?