Software vendor Microsoft Corp., US, has reportedly announced that data in its hosted business suite Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) has been downloaded by non-authorised users. Microsoft confirmed the cloud data breach to Dutch IDG publication Webwereld.
The company said it recently became aware that due to a configuration issue, the Offline Address Book information for BPOS Standard customers could be inadvertently downloaded by other customers of the service in a very specific circumstance. The address book contains business contact information for employees. Stored on a server hosted by Microsoft as part of Exchange Online, the data can be downloaded for offline access. The company has informed all BPOS customers and partners about the issue, which was fixed after two hours of being discovered. The company has tracking facilities in place that allow it to contact and inform those who downloaded the wrong data.
The data breach was reportedly due to a "configuration issue" at Microsoft data centres in the US, Europe and Asia. The incident is seen to cause concern for those planning to adopt cloud computing in the near future. Microsoft's main cloud offering is Office 365, which is linked to its Office suite.
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