Microsoft will require its employees in China to use only iPhones due to their enhanced security features.
The move comes as Microsoft undertakes a major cybersecurity overhaul. The project, known domestically as the Secure Future Initiative, comes after Microsoft faced scrutiny for its subpar security practices. Microsoft’s new policy, which will take effect in September, means that employees in China will only be allowed to use iPhones for work, as first reported by Bloomberg. The new rule aims to effectively limit the number of Android phones used by Chinese Microsoft employees.
Microsoft will begin requiring employees to verify their identity and use two-factor authentication when logging in to their work phones.
Microsoft had to ask its employees to use iPhones only for work because some security apps like Microsoft Authenticator and the Identity Pass app were not available on any other operating system in China. In the US and other countries, these two apps are also available on Google Play. But Google Play doesn’t work in China, which means Microsoft employees can only get the relevant security apps on an Apple iPhone.
“Due to the lack of availability of Google Mobile Services in this region, we look to provide employees with a means of accessing these required applications, such as an iOS device,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. wealth in an email.
Employees in China who do not have an iPhone will be given one by Microsoft, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese Android phones made by companies like Huawei and Xiaomi run their own platforms. Microsoft’s ban on Chinese smartphones is emblematic of a different digital ecosystem between China and the US, where the two governments and the big corporations that work with them have become increasingly wary of allowing the other to access sensitive material.
China has its own search engines and social media platforms, where US giants like Facebook are banned. Its internet censors are legendary for their breadth and severity. Meanwhile, in the US the White House has restricted exports of the most sophisticated semiconductor technology to Chinese companies. And Congress passed a bill that would force the sale of Chinese-owned TikTok to an American buyer amid concerns that the social media platform could be used to influence public opinion.
Cybersecurity became a top priority for Microsoft after it was discovered that its cloud systems had been breached by state-backed Chinese hackers last year. The cyber attack came ahead of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Beijing in June 2023, further exacerbating tensions between the US and China. The hack raised major red flags about Microsoft’s security practices. In April, a federal agency released a scathing report that found Microsoft’s “security culture was inadequate.”
In March, a US federal court charged a group of Chinese hackers with a separate set of cyberattacks that took place in 2018. The Chinese embassy in Washington DC said the charges were baseless. “Without valid evidence, the US jumped to an unjustified conclusion and made baseless accusations against China,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, said at the time.
As the relationship between the US and China grows more tense, both sides have sought to protect the other’s cyber capabilities. Since 2023, Chinese government-backed companies have ordered employees to stop using foreign smartphones from manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung. Meanwhile, China has been trying to spy on parts of the US with its own covert methods. Early last year, China sent several spy balloons to the U.S. Even electric vehicles and connected cars have come under question, seen as a covert way to spy on Americans. The Biden administration is weighing a ban on all Chinese smart cars after a national security investigation found they collect passenger data and use external sensors to gather information on US infrastructure. One last one wealth the investigation found that China’s self-driving cars have already traveled 1.8 million miles on American roads.
Those tensions have only risen after a report released on Tuesday by an Australian-led consortium of intelligence agencies, including those from the US, UK, Japan and Germany, detailed repeated cyber attacks by the country’s main spy agency. China.