In June 2017, Brett Arsenault, who is well known as the top-ranking cybersecurity executive from Microsoft, was shocked with the news of cyberattack, which was later named as NotPetya. This attack had started locking down computers and closing down businesses in Ukraine. Initially, it seemed like a regular ransomware attack, in which firms would have been able to open their locked up computers. However, NotPetya was not the same. Rather than ransomware, this attack was spread at lightning-fast speed just as a worm. The firms quickly discovered that there were no criminals to discuss regarding a ransom with at all. This left all the firms with no data and inoperable hardware.
Arsenault quickly called his staff in the U.S. and Eastern Europe. He asked his staff to cut off access to Ukraine within 10 Minutes. He ordered to stop the nasty software from stretching out to Microsoft’s locations in that country. The staff members stated that they didn’t believe they could do it so fast. He pushed, they worked. And finally, they were successful to shut it down.
On a similar note, Microsoft came into the news as it announced the partnership with VMware. Now, as part of an expansive partnership, VMware customers might be able to expand their VMware infrastructure speculations to the Microsoft Azure cloud. The recent announcement comes after a similar VMware–Amazon Web Services agreement from a few years ago.
CEOs of VMware, Microsoft, and Dell Technologies, which is a VMware majority owner, revealed the agreement at Dell Technologies World, Las Vegas. The latest arrangement comes after a contentious recent attempt by Microsoft to carry out its own execution of VMware technology integration for Azure in a manner that was not backed by VMware. In a statement, Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft, positioned the latest agreement as part of Microsoft’s new pattern of working closely with sometimes partial competitors. This deal is supposed to improve common customer interests. He added that the firm is focused on empowering customers in their digital transformation journey.