August Pfluger Grills Microsoft President On Facing 300 Million Cyberattacks Per Day

3 months ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday, Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) spoke about Microsoft's ability to defend itself from hundreds of millions of Chinese cyberattacks a day.

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00:00The gentleman yields. Point of clarification for the record, it was 300 million attacks

00:06a day. Did I hear that correctly? Yes, that's correct. Against our customers

00:10that we observe, we detect more than 300 million such attacks every day.

00:17Just clarifying for the record, I now recognize Mr. Pfluger for five minutes of questioning.

00:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, thanks for being here. I want to talk about the collaboration.

00:29In many committees on Capitol Hill, we're talking about this balance and tension between

00:35safety and security and liberty and private enterprises. What I really want to hear from

00:43you is talk to us about the relationship with CISA. I know you've mentioned this in testimony

00:49written and also today, but just talk to us about how that relationship is. What can be

00:57better from your side? What can be better, what you expect from the government? Is it

01:02a mandate for reporting from the government? Is it voluntary roundtables in a classified

01:09setting? I'd like to hear a little bit about that and I have some follow-on questions.

01:13Yeah, I think CISA is a critical agency. It's been moving in a positive direction overall.

01:18I think the CSRB plays an important part of this. I think that ultimately we would benefit

01:25from finding more ways to keep working together across the tech sector and then with the CISA

01:32and other agencies in the U.S. government and, frankly, with our allies because it's

01:37an entire ecosystem that we're seeking to defend and nobody can do it by themselves.

01:45I think fundamentally, just as the CSRB's words were well taken by us, we needed to

01:51focus on our culture. I think we have a collective culture and it's a collective culture that

01:58we need to work on by inspiring more collaboration, not just with the government but, frankly,

02:06across our industry so that people can compete. Somebody said there's no plan B. I think about

02:12two-thirds of the folks who are sitting behind me in this room are trying to sell plan B

02:16to you in one way or another and that's okay. But there's a higher calling here as well.

02:24And I like to say, you know, the truth is when shots are being fired, people end up

02:28being hit and they take their turn being the patient in the back of the ambulance. Everybody

02:35else, you're either going to be an ambulance driver or you're going to be an ambulance

02:38chaser. Let's be ambulance drivers together.

02:42Well, let's drill down to that and the relationship that you have with the U.S. intelligence community,

02:48with DOD. The thing that's unique about Microsoft is you pretty much cover every sector, every

02:54industry, every, you know, households, businesses, but when you look at the relationship with the

03:00national security entities, tell us what the biggest gaps are right now to making sure that

03:05they can stay secure in their operations.

03:10The thing to think about is that defenders too often work in silos. Every company thinks

03:16about their products. Every agency thinks about what they have. Attackers look for the seams

03:23between the silos. The more silos you have, the more seams you have. And just as there

03:30are seams in different technology products because most customers deploy them together,

03:35there are seams across the government. So a lot of times one of the challenges for us

03:41is that the parts of the government, when this information is coming in about, say,

03:47an active cyber attack from a place like China, that information doesn't necessarily flow from

03:52one part of the federal government to another. And there's a lot of work being done to address

03:58this, but I think that needs to be advanced more quickly as a matter of priority.

04:02300 million attacks a day. That's incredible. Finally, let me just talk about that. I think

04:09this is the Committee on Homeland Security. We're very worried about what nation-state actors and

04:13non-nation-state actors are doing and how that affects our homeland. Obviously, the PRC and

04:19the CCP's attempts to undermine this country, our government industries, intellectual property,

04:25all of it is a massive concern. And so I know you've mentioned this before here today,

04:33but just talk to us a little bit about the relationship with the PRC. How does that

04:38affect intellectual property, things that you have that could be either exploited for their benefit

04:45to undermine the United States of America? I would say two things. First, any company

04:53that has valuable intellectual property has to be very careful to protect it from theft,

04:58unless it's IP that they're publishing, and a lot of code is published in open source form.

05:04But you have to think about how to protect it so it doesn't go where it should not. And there are

05:09certain intrusions, especially from, say, a place like the PRC, that are focused on discovering

05:16trade secrets. And knowing that, is Microsoft taking steps to improve

05:22what you're protecting? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, the other thing just to know is that

05:30the adversaries are constantly changing their tactics. If this were a case of just saying,

05:35gee, this is what was done in like 2022, let's all go fix what was done in 2022, then you'd feel

05:42good. But I guarantee that what is done in 2025 is going to be different from what is being done

05:49in 2024. You constantly have to learn, adapt, and change, which is what we're doing.

August Pfluger Grills Microsoft President On Facing 300 Million Cyberattacks Per Day

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