14 DAY TRIAL // If you’re thinking that the recent NSA scandal involving whistleblower Edward Snowden and large IT firms based in the United States would make these companies enhance their security systems, you’re wrong.
Microsoft has just admitted in an EU inquiry that it doesn’t actually encrypt server-to-server communications despite the recent NSA claims accusing the Redmond-based giant for providing US intelligence agencies with unlimited access to its servers.
With Snowden recently revealing that an internal NSA program codenamed MUSCULAR involved US engineers who were trying to use Google and Yahoo data centers to collect data on specific accounts, it’s pretty clear that Microsoft needs to enhance security of its servers.
And it does that right now, EMEA vice president of legal and corporate affairs, Dorothee Belz, told during the inquiry, while also adding that Microsoft never hands over user data to authorities unless the company is asked to do it by federal laws.
“Today from servers to server transportation is generally not encrypted that is why we are currently reviewing our security systems to avoid the [possibility] that interception into communication can take place,” Belz said according to The Register.
Paradoxically, even though it doesn’t work on enhancing the encryption of its own servers, Microsoft keeps asking for more freedom when it comes to disclosing data regarding the requests it received from intelligence agencies to provide user details.
Microsoft and other tech giant sued the NSA the last summer, pointing to the US Constitution for the right of sharing more details about what the intelligence agency has asked it to provide.
“We believe it is vital to publish information that clearly shows the number of national security demands for user content, such as the text of an email. These figures should be published in a form that is distinct from the number of demands that capture only metadata such as the subscriber information associated with a particular email address,” Brad Smith, general counsel & executive vice president, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft, said.
We’re still waiting for an official comment from Redmond, so we’ll update the article when Microsoft releases a statement on this.