Google Blames Windows For Its Own Mistakes

his week's word is that Google is in the process of dumping Microsoft Windows. Employees have the choice of Linux or Mac; any new use of Windows has to be approved at the CIO level. The policy was apparently triggered by Google's Chinese hacker attack revealed in January. That's a lame excuse.

First, let me say that this doesn't appear to be a story that Google wants to publicize; they're not looking for a public fight with Microsoft. The noise of the Internet echo chamber, more than 50 articles strong at this point, started with a single Financial Times article quoting unnamed sources inside Google. None of the other 50-plus stories seemed to add anything to the facts. I had hoped to get a substantial response from Google, but their official spokesperson's reply is simply, "We're always working to improve the efficiency of our business, but we don't comment on specific operational matters." So we're left to work with the information in the original FT article.

Perhaps it's natural for Google's IT department to blame Windows for their recent attack by Chinese hackers, but it seems unfair. The public information about the incident indicated that hackers gained access through an email message that socially engineered a Google insider into clicking a link. The exploit the attackers used was one for Internet Explorer 6 (yes, IE SIX), and it was an exploit that had already been addressed by Microsoft. Unfortunately for Google, they hadn't installed the patch. So reviewing the cause of the Chinese hacking incident, it could have been avoided with better training of employees, and by actually patching Windows in a timely manner as Microsoft recommends.

This was a targeted attack. If hackers still want to attack Google, using Linux or Macs will not deter them. There are still plenty of avenues available on those platforms -- especially when Google's IT department doesn't apply OS patches and naive Google employees can be tricked into running software or visiting sites that they shouldn't. These poor practices create risks that transcend operating system security boundaries.

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Since Google is now competing with Microsoft on several fronts including Android and Chrome OS, they have some incentive to avoid sending large amounts of money to that competitor for software licenses. But also don't forget that Google delivers most services via the browser, and most users are still using Windows. Plus, Internet Explorer is still the most popular (well, okay, let's say prevalent) browser. So Google still needs to be developing apps for the Windows platform. Let's hope their internal disdain for Windows doesn't mean a lower-quality Google experience for Windows users.