【By Observer News, Yuan Jiaqi】

Trump administration's "crackdown" on Chinese technical personnel continues. According to British media Reuters and American media CNBC, on the 18th, according to local time on Friday, Microsoft, a major contractor of the U.S. government, announced that it would stop using Chinese engineers to provide technical support to the U.S. military.

On the same day, Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw posted on social media platform X, stating that the company has adjusted the way it provides services to U.S. government clients "to respond to concerns that arose earlier this week... ensuring that no engineering teams based in China provide technical support for services used by the Pentagon".

Photo: U.S. Department of Defense Press Conference, Visual China

The report points out that this decision originated from an article recently published by the U.S. investigative news organization "ProPublica." It revealed that under the supervision of the U.S. "Digital Guardians," Microsoft had arranged for Chinese engineers to participate in related work for the U.S. military cloud computing system.

The article claimed that these "Digital Guardians" were hired through subcontractors, held security clearance, but generally lacked the technical capability to assess whether the work of Chinese engineers posed network security risks.

According to the article, the so-called "Digital Guardians" refer to the fact that because the U.S. Department of Defense requires personnel handling sensitive data to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, Microsoft's foreign employees could not directly access sensitive cloud systems. Therefore, Microsoft, which relies on a global workforce, established the "Digital Guardians" program, hiring employees in the United States with security clearance to listen to and execute instructions from overseas engineers, and copy and paste the engineers' commands into the system.

Fox News cited sources who said that these "Digital Guardians" were usually veterans, and their employment was primarily based on security permissions rather than technical ability, often lacking the skills to evaluate the code written by the engineers they supervised.

"ProPublica" claimed that the "Digital Guardians" might unknowingly insert so-called "malicious code" provided by foreign engineers into the Department of Defense's computer systems, posing a risk of "espionage" activities. The entire article's attack was aimed at Chinese engineers.

Microsoft responded to the article, stating that it detailed the specific details of the "Guard Mode" in the authorization documents submitted to the government, and the operations of personnel and subcontractors also "complied with the requirements and procedures of the U.S. government."

The statement emphasized that Microsoft's global employees "could not directly access customer data or customer systems," and "guardians with appropriate permissions and training would provide direct support. These people received specialized training on protecting sensitive data, preventing damage, and using specific commands/control in the environment."

Pradeep Nair, former vice president of Microsoft, also explained that as an early concept developer of the "Guard Program," they set up various security measures, including audit logs, to alert Microsoft or the government about potential issues. He said, "Due to these strict control measures, the remaining risk is extremely small."

However, this article that "stirred up trouble" attacking China was quickly exploited and hyped up by the "China-hating maniacs" within the U.S. Republican Party.

Earlier on Friday, Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and member of the Military Committee, wrote to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin regarding the content of the article, demanding that the U.S. military provide a list of contractors that employed Chinese nationals to provide services to the Department of Defense, and more information on how the "Digital Guardians" were trained to detect suspicious activities.

In his letter, he claimed, "The U.S. government recognizes that China's cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, having infiltrated our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains."

On the same day, Austin posted a video on the social media platform X, announcing that he would launch a two-week review to ensure that Chinese engineers were not involved in any cloud service contracts of the Department of Defense.

In the video, he exaggerated the threat, saying, "This is clearly unacceptable, especially in today's digital threat environment... China will no longer be involved in our cloud services in any form, effective immediately. We will continue to monitor and counter all threats to our military infrastructure and online networks."

According to CNBC, stopping the use of Chinese engineers will affect the business of Microsoft Azure Cloud Services. Analysts estimate that this department currently contributes over 25% of the company's revenue, surpassing Google Cloud Platform (GCP), but still less than Amazon Web Services (AWS). According to Microsoft's latest quarterly financial report, the company "has obtained considerable income from government contracts," and more than half of its first-quarter $70 billion revenue came from domestic U.S. customers.

Regarding the frequent U.S.炒作 of so-called "hacker spy" threats, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has made multiple solemn statements, stating that China has always resolutely opposed and legally cracked down on hacker attacks, and urged the U.S. to stop smearing and slandering China with cybersecurity issues. In recent times, the U.S. has greatly exaggerated the so-called "Chinese hacker attacks," even launching illegal unilateral sanctions against China. China firmly opposes this and will take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.

This article is exclusive to Observer News. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7528608683945738791/

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