Microsoft is reportedly asking its employees in China to make a change in their work smartphones for security reasons. Bloomberg reports that it has seen an internal memo to those team members, asking them to ditch Android smartphones when they work and only use Apple"s iPhones.
The report says this move is part of Microsoft"s bigger emphasis on security, which it announced was its top priority above everything else at the company in May. According to the report, Microsoft"s memo stated all of its mainland China employees will have to turn in their Android-based work smartphones by a date in September and get an iPhone 15 instead. China Microsoft employees will then only be able to sign into their work devices with an iPhone.
Bloomberg"s report claims Microsoft is making this move in part because the Google Play app store is not officially available in mainland China. That means Android devices in that country would not be able to release and update Android-based Microsoft Authenticator and other security and identity apps that those workers will need to use.
This security-based change for Microsoft"s Chinese team members comes after a year of major breaches in the company"s systems. They have included one that happened in the summer of 2023, when Microsoft says a Chinese-based group got access to Outlook email accounts in the US and Europe.
After that incident, Microsoft announced a new Secure Future Initiative program in November 2023 designed to boost its overall cybersecurity efforts. However, in early January 2024, the company revealed that a Russia-based hacker group managed to access the email accounts of some of Microsoft"s top executives. Since then, the company has revealed that not only will security be its top concern for the foreseeable future, but that its employees may have their pay and bonuses affected depending on their own contributions to cybersecurity.