Hackers from Russia, China targeting US Presidential campaigns: Microsoft

 The tech giant Microsoft said on Thursday that it has spotted multiple cyberattacks from Russia, China and Iran on individuals and organisations involved in the ongoing presidential campaigns in the United States.

"In recent weeks, Microsoft has detected cyberattacks targeting people and organisations involved in the upcoming presidential election, including unsuccessful attacks on people associated with both the Trump and Biden campaigns," the company said on its blog. "The activity we are announcing today makes clear that foreign activity groups have stepped up their efforts targeting the 2020 election as had been anticipated."

 

Microsoft said that attackers-- the hacker groups Strontium, Zirconium and Phosphorus-- operate from Russia, China and Iran, respectively.

Among more than the 200 Strontium targets are US-based consultants serving Republicans and Democrats, think tanks, national and state political party organisations in the United States as well as political parties in the United Kingdom.

According to Microsoft, Strontium was also identified in the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report as the organisation primary responsible for the alleged attacks on the Democratic presidential campaign in 2016.

"Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has observed a series of attacks conducted by Strontium between September 2019 and today," the company said.

Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the US political system, saying the allegations have been invented to excuse Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 election as well as deflect public attention from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.

Microsoft said that China's Zirconium attacked high-profile individuals involved in the election, including people associated with Joe Biden's campaign and "prominent leaders in the international affairs community." Iran's Phosphorus continues to attack personal accounts of people associated with Donald Trump's campaign, according to the publications.

Microsoft pointed out that the majority of the attacks were detected and stopped by security tools built into its products. The company added that it has notified those who were targeted or compromised so they can take action to protect themselves.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

What can India expect from Satya Nadella's visit as Donald Trump arrives

With MicrosoftCEO Satya Nadella all set to visit India next week -- around the same time US President Donald Trump is making his first official visit to this part of the world -- the software giant is looking forward to further consolidate its position in the country.
At a time when the Indian government is focused on digital transformation across sectors and modernise its IT infrastructure, Microsoft may take Nadella's visit as an opportunity to showcase how it can help government achieve its goals across Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), smart cities, industrial automation and robotics etc.

"Government engagement is a major focus for Microsoft top management in India for the past two decades, and all the more now with expanding digital plans and also rising nationalist resistance to global digital and tech companies," leading tech policy and media consultant Prasanto K. Roy told IANS.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has on several occasions stressed on the importance of leveraging emerging technologies like AI and ML to solve India's critical problems.
The National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, is inviting bids from tech companies to build hardware and software infrastructure that can help the country fight crime with automated facial recognition system.
"It goes without saying that India is an important, and I must add, crucial market for global technology companies, including Microsoft," Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CyberMedia Research (CMR).
"Microsoft's biggest R&D centre outside of the US is based in India, and it has made recent moves to further tap into the engineering talent pool available in India through its new R&D hub. This, in turn, will enable Microsoft to maintain its technology leadership," Ram said.
Microsoft launched its India operations in 1990 and for the past 30 years the company has played a major role in digital transformation of the country.
On Monday, it announced the launch of its third India Development Centre (IDC) in Noida, after opening two such premier engineering and innovation hubs in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
"I foresee a further impetus to Microsoft's digital transformation efforts in India with its cloud and emerging tech stack offerings, including AI," Ram said.
While Microsoft is yet to reveal Nadella's forthcoming itinerary, the Hyderabad-born Microsoft CEO is expected to have key engagements in Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
The company is organising 'Future Decoded Summits' in Mumbai and Bengaluru, respectively.
At the summits, Nadella will share his vision for the future of technology and how Indian organisations can lead in an era of digital transformation.
The events would also see addresses by industry stalwarts and Microsoft executives, including Jean Philippe Courtois, EVP and President, Global Sales-Marketing and Operations.
Whether we will see Trump and Nadella sharing the space together is still under the wraps.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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Huge upset for Amazon as Microsoft wins Pentagon's $10 bn 'war cloud' deal

The Pentagon has awarded Microsoft a $10 billion cloud computing contract called JEDI.
The contentious bidding process for the contract pitted Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle, among others, against one another.

Bidding for the huge government contract has attracted more attention than usual, sparked by speculation early in the process that Amazon would be awarded the deal. Tech giants Oracle and IBM pushed back with their own bids. Oracle also challenged the bid process in federal court, but lost.
The resulting system will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the US military to use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.
The Department of Defence emphasized in an announcement that the process was fair and followed procurement guidelines.
Over the last year, Microsoft has positioned itself as a friend to the US military. President Brad Smith wrote last fall that Microsoft has long supplied technology to the military and would continue to do so, despite pushback from employees.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google and other tech giants have faced criticism from their own employees about doing business with the government, especially on military and immigration related projects.
Microsoft and Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gets 66% raise in 2018-19, earns $42.9 million

With Microsoft posting strong results, the company's CEO Satya Nadella has got a 66 per cent raise in the 2018-19 fiscal, taking his total yearly earnings to a whopping $42.9 million, according to media reports on Thursday.
While Nadella, 52, has a base salary of a little over $2.3 million, most of his pay came from stock awards, reported CNN Business.

He received $29.6 million in stock award, $10,7 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation and around $111,000 in other compensation.
In a proxy statement, Microsoft's independent directors said, "The past fiscal year offered another record year for financial performance, and Microsoft delivered strong results for our shareholders, including a return of $30.9 billion in the form of share repurchases and dividends."
The directors credited Nadella for his "strategic leadership, including his efforts to strengthen trust with customers, drive for a company-wide culture change, and successful entry and expansion into new technologies and markets."
In the 2017-18 fiscal, the Hyderabad-born business executive had got a pay of $25.8 million.
Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014. Under his leadership, the company has become a major force in cloud computing.
In September, Microsoft hit an all-time high after the company raised its dividend and authorised a plan to buy back as much as $40 billion of its own stock, the CNN Business report said.
In comparison to Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook got a pay of $15.7 million in 2018 with $3 million in salary. Google CEO Sundar Pichai received $1.9 million in overall compensation. Bloomberg previously reported that Pichai turned down a stock award.

Microsoft's stock market value closes above Apple's for 1st time in 8 years

Microsoft Corp's stock market value closed above Apple Inc's for the first time in eight years on Friday as the Windows maker benefited from growth in cloud computing while Apple was hit by investor concern about iPhone demand.
Shares of Microsoft rose 0.6 per cent to end the week at $110.89, putting its market capitalisation at $851.2 billion. Apple shares fell 0.5 per cent to $178.58 on the day, adding up to a market value of $847.4 billion.

The two stocks jostled for the top spot over the course of the week, with Microsoft's stock market value exceeding Apple's at several points in intra-day trading but not at the close.
Both companies' market capitalizations were calculated using outstanding shares reported in their most recent 10-Q filings.
Apple's market capitalisation overtook Microsoft's in 2010 as Microsoft struggled with slow demand for personal computers, due in part to the explosion of smartphones like the iPhone.
After Satya Nadella took over as chief executive in 2014, Microsoft reduced its reliance on Windows software for PCs and became a major player in cloud computing, second only to Amazon.com Inc .
In recent months, technology shares have been punished by investors worried about rising interest rates and the potential consequences of the U.S.-China trade war.
Apple shares are now 19.6 per cent lower than on Nov. 1, when the company warned after the regular session that holiday-quarter sales would likely miss Wall Street expectations.
Global demand for smartphones has slowed in recent years.
Thirty-three analysts recommend buying Microsoft's stock, with just one sell rating and one neutral, according to Refinitiv data.
Twenty-five analysts have positive ratings on Apple, 16 are neutral and none recommend selling, the data show.
Analysts on average expect Microsoft's revenue to increase 12.7 per cent for its fiscal year 2019 ending in June, compared with an estimated 5 per cent rise for Apple's fiscal 2019, which ends in Sept, according to the Refinitiv data.

Microsoft hits $823 bn mcap, overtakes Amazon as 2nd most valuable US firm

Microsoft Corp regained its spot as the second most valuable US company on Friday after a disappointing quarterly report from Amazon.com wiped $65 billion off the online retailer's market capitalisation.
Apple Inc tops the list at over $1 trillion after crossing that threshold in September. Microsoft's market capitalisation was Wall Street's highest in late 1998 through early 2000 before the dot-com bubble burst.
Amazon's shares dropped 7 per cent, the most in nearly three years after its holiday season sales outlook missed targets, fanning concerns that Wall Street's tech darlings are finally starting to face stronger competition.

Microsoft fell a more modest 1.1 per cent in a broad technology sell-off that was also driven by a weaker-than-expected report from Google-parent Alphabet Inc, leaving the Nasdaq composite index down 1.9 per cent late Friday afternoon.
Shares of Microsoft remain up nearly 4 per cent from Wednesday, when the four-decade-old software company beat quarterly profit expectations, driven by its cloud computing business that competes with Amazon's.
Its stock market value on Friday stood at $823 billion, on track to close above Amazon's for the first time since April, when it gave up its spot as the second largest company by market capitalization.
Amazon was worth $805 billion on Friday, after falling below Microsoft's in extended trade on Thursday. The drop was equivalent to the combined values of Target Corp and Corning Inc.
Amazon's tumble left it up around 40 per cent year to date, while Microsoft has gained about 25 per cent in 2018. On Wednesday, Amazon's stock traded at the equivalent of 70 times expected earnings, its lowest level since 2011.
The average analyst price target for Microsoft puts its market cap at $963 billion, while the average price target for Amazon values it at $1.068 trillion.
Apple will report quarterly results on November 1.