By shoshana.gordon@propublica.org
Publication Date: 2026-03-18 10:00:00
Reporting Highlights
- “Cloud First”: To move federal agencies to the cloud, the government created a program known as FedRAMP, whose job was to ensure the security of new technology.
- Security Breakdown: ProPublica found that FedRAMP authorized a Microsoft product called GCC High to handle sensitive government data, despite years of concerns about its security.
- Potential Conflict of Interest: The government relies, in part, on third-party firms to vet cloud technology, but those firms are hired and paid by the company being assessed.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
In late 2024, the federal government’s cybersecurity evaluators rendered a troubling verdict on one of Microsoft’s biggest cloud computing offerings.
The tech giant’s “lack of proper detailed security documentation” left reviewers with a “lack of confidence in assessing the system’s overall security posture,” according to…
