According to an email I\u2019ve seen, sent to customers of Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), some users have found their Offline Address Book \u2013 an Exchange feature which stores a company\u2019s internal address list \u2013 has been downloaded by other BPOS customers:<\/p>\n
\nMicrosoft recently became aware that, due to a configuration issue, Offline Address Book information for Business Productivity Online Suite\u2013Standard customers could be inadvertently downloaded by other customers of the service, in a very specific circumstance. The issue was resolved within two hours of identification, and we completed a thorough review of processes to prevent this type of issue from occurring again. Our records indicate that a very small number of downloads actually occurred, and we are working with those few customers to remove the files.<\/p>\n
This issue affected only Business Productivity Online Suite\u2013Standard customers; no other Microsoft Online Services were affected. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Big deal? Probably not, especially as customer address lists, which might be useful to competitors, are not normally included in an Offline Address Book.<\/p>\n
That said, any leakage of data from one customer to another is a serious issue, as it is exactly this possibility which deters users from using cloud services in the first place. It is an inherent hazard of multi-tenancy. <\/p>\n
Still, kudos to Microsoft for owning up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to an email I\u2019ve seen, sent to customers of Microsoft BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), some users have found their Offline Address Book \u2013 an Exchange feature which stores a company\u2019s internal address list \u2013 has been downloaded by other BPOS customers: Microsoft recently became aware that, due to a configuration issue, Offline Address … Continue reading Microsoft inadvertently shares BPOS offline address books with other customers<\/span>