What you need to know
- Microsoft President Brad Smith shared an update about what the company has done during the ongoing war in Ukraine.
- The tech giant has committed over $35 million to support humanitarian assistance and match millions of dollars worth of employee donations to help refugees.
- Microsoft has also provided cybersecurity assistance to the Ukrainian government.
Microsoft stopped new sales of its products and services in Russia on March 4, 2022. The tech giant has also fought against cyberattacks and disinformation during the war in Ukraine. Now, Microsoft President Brad Smith has provided an update about the steps the company has taken during the war.
Smith added a list of six ways that Microsoft has supported Ukraine or the Ukrainian people during the ongoing war. Efforts include committing $35 million to support humanitarian assistance and matching employee donations to help refugees. Microsoft has also worked with the Ukrainian government to battle cybercriminals and to secure systems.
Here's the complete list of steps taken:
- Microsoft has now committed over $35 million to support humanitarian assistance and relief efforts for Ukraine. This includes more than $18 million worth of Microsoft technology to help organizations such as the Polish Humanitarian Action respond to critical needs and others providing services on the ground.
- Microsoft employee donations are being matched by the company 2:1, resulting in more than $13.5 million raised to date in support of organizations working both within Ukraine and supporting refugees who have fled to neighboring countries. These funds are provided to key NGOs with the mission of helping Ukrainians.
- We've recently applied our capability with RiskIQ to look "outside in" to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities in Ukrainian government systems. As a result, we provided a list of exposed and vulnerable systems to the Ukrainian government that had unpatched high-impact common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) that could provide a foothold for attackers.
- We have deployed cybersecurity technical protections to dozens of targeted organizations in concert with the Ukraine government as well as providing licenses and services that allow organizations in Ukraine the ability to operate by moving critical software services from on-premises servers to the cloud.
- Microsoft Disaster Response teams have now worked on or completed 67 projects in less than four weeks to assist groups that are in or helping Ukraine. The team has received over 130 mission requests from government, nonprofit, and commercial organizations assisting those in need and will continue to work through additional requests.
- Our Skype team has extended their free calling into and out of Ukraine by another two weeks, already providing over 6.5 million minutes of calls, helping Ukrainians stay in touch with the world.
Microsoft will continue its suspension of new sales of products and services in Russia.
