The Privacy Diaries: Microsoft User Data Exposed and Why Blockchain Is The Solution

One of the biggest data leaks in recent memory was from Microsoft, one of the world’s top companies in the technological world.

250 million records of data were leaked from Microsoft’s customer service platform. Conversations from “support case analytics” from December 5, 2019-December 31st, 2019 were visible to the entire world from the dates of 2005 to 2019. This means that conversation logs from support agents to customers over the past 14 years were exposed for almost a month.

What’s also interesting, was that Microsoft failed to disclose what type of personal information was compromised, besides customer’s email addresses. This is completely unethical, especially coming from a reputable household name.

Microsoft claimed that there was no malicious use, however, since emails were visible, it would have been easy for third-party hackers to claim that they were Microsoft in phishing scams. Moreover, it was revealed that IP addresses and geographical locations were also exposed to the public during this time.

It’s also not known if there was any regulatory auditing for firewall and safety measures. With such a large company, there should be regulatory security auditing measures in place, in order to prevent these breaches.

As society continues to question where our data is being stored, trust is steadily decreasing in larger companies. We simply do not know where our information is going, or who it is being viewed by. Not to mention, how long will it take for these companies to recognize that customer’s data has been breached? Will they do anything about it?

With dApps built with blockchain architecture, consumers do not have to worry about their data, or private conversations between support staff being leaked. Once data is inputted into the decentralized network, it becomes practically impossible to tamper with. If more large-scale companies would adopt blockchain technology, customer trust would be easier to win back. That’s why Debrief is built on a decentralized network and enables it’s functionalities in other mainstream applications. Conversations are safe and secure, data is protected, and information belongs with the customer — where it should be.