Microsoft left internal passwords exposed in latest security blunder

Microsoft reportedly locked down a server last month that exposed passwords, keys, and credentials of Microsoft employees to the open internet, as the company faces mounting pressure to bolster its software security.

According to Techcrunch, three security researchers at SOCRadar — a company specializing in detecting corporate cybersecurity weaknesses — discovered that an Azure-hosted server storing sensitive data linked to Microsoft’s Bing search engine was left open with no password protection, meaning it could be accessed by anyone online. The server contained a variety of security credentials used by Microsoft employees to access internal systems, housed within various scripts, code, and configuration files.

The exposed credentials “could result in more significant data leaks and possibly compromise the services in use.”

One of the researchers, Can Yoleri, told Techcrunch that hackers could potentially use this exposed data to find and access other areas where Microsoft stores internal data, which “could result in more significant data leaks and possibly compromise the services in use.”

Microsoft was notified about the vulnerability on February 6th, and locked it down by March 5th. It’s unclear if anyone else accessed the exposed server during this time. We have reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story if we hear back.