Microsoft patched Bing's vulnerability allowing email and other data snooping

Bing was patched last month days before a new version of the search engine powered by artificial intelligence was launched by Microsoft Corp. MSFT 1.49%.

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A security firm called Wiz Inc., which is a security firm with an outside research team had discovered the problem. The researchers said that the vulnerability was created by a mistake that Microsoft made when setting up applications on Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing platform, and could be used to gain access to emails and other documents that people who use Bing had stored in their accounts.

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As per Ami Luttwak, the chief technology officer of Wiz, the problem was resolved by Microsoft on Feb. 2. And five days later, Satya Nadella introduced the new generative AI capabilities that are now available on Bing, which triggered a renewed interest in Microsoft's 14-year-old search engine. It has been more than a month since Microsoft launched a new version of the search engine and its usage has skyrocketed to more than 100 million daily active users, it has said in a recent blog post.

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Microsoft has been adding generative AI capabilities to its software and services in a wide range of ways over the last few years. By leveraging the technology behind ChatGPT, the new Bing can assist users in finding the information they are looking for through a chatbot.

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With the addition of this technology, Microsoft is adding to its popular Microsoft 365 suite of business applications. It has just been announced that it is planning to use artificial intelligence to help cybersecurity experts monitor and categorize threats and attacks as they emerge.

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Approximately one-third of Microsoft's applications that use its login management service, called Azure Active Directory, were affected by the misconfiguration issue, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

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“It is with great pleasure that we thank Wiz for working with us to mitigate a potential risk and harden our services further, and thank them for their efforts in protecting our ecosystem,” the company explained in a statement.

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A more detailed explanation of the issue and how customers can mitigate it will be released on Wednesday by Microsoft and Wiz.