{"id":3093970,"date":"2026-02-18T06:44:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=3093970"},"modified":"2026-02-19T09:58:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:58:26","slug":"microsoft-says-office-bug-exposed-customers-confidential-emails-to-copilot-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/18\/microsoft-says-office-bug-exposed-customers-confidential-emails-to-copilot-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers&#8217; confidential emails to Copilot AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft has confirmed that a bug allowed its Copilot AI to summarize customers&#8217; confidential emails for weeks without permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bug, first reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleepingcomputer.com\/news\/microsoft\/microsoft-says-bug-causes-copilot-to-summarize-confidential-emails\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Bleeping Computer<\/a>, allowed Copilot Chat to read and outline the contents of emails since January, even if customers had data loss prevention policies to prevent ingesting their sensitive information into Microsoft&#8217;s large language model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Copilot Chat allows paying Microsoft 365 customers to use the AI-powered chat feature in its Office software products, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft said the bug, trackable by admins as <a href=\"https:\/\/admin.microsoft.com\/#\/MessageCenter\/:\/messages\/CW1226324\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">CW1226324<\/a>, means that draft and sent email messages &#8220;with a confidential label applied are being incorrectly processed by Microsoft 365 Copilot chat.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The tech giant said it began rolling out a fix for the bug earlier in February. When reached, a Microsoft spokesperson would not say how many customers are affected by the bug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this week, the European Parliament&#8217;s IT department <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/02\/17\/european-parliament-blocks-ai-on-lawmakers-devices-citing-security-risks\/\">told lawmakers<\/a> that it blocked the built-in AI features on their work-issued devices, citing concerns that the AI tools could upload potentially confidential correspondence to the cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Updated with response from Microsoft.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft said the bug meant that its Copilot AI chatbot was reading and summarizing paying customers&#8217; confidential emails, bypassing data-protection policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133574210,"featured_media":2688371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tc-featured-article":false,"tc-header-option":"","tc-breaking-news":false,"tc-article-brief":true,"carmot_uuid":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-18T14:44:32Z","apple_news_api_id":"8704c817-d41f-4c44-88cf-ad9ffe08904f","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-19T17:58:25Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AhwTIF9QfTESIz62f_giQTw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"tc_subtitle":"","tc_featured_image_disabled":false,"tc_exclude_from_rss_feed":false,"tc_exclude_from_content_rivers":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[577047203,21587494],"tags":[637,14067,965824,35064,84261,576729047,577267246],"tc_region":[],"tc_event":[],"tc_storyline_tax":[],"coauthors":[576607994],"class_list":["post-3093970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-security","tag-microsoft","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity","tag-data-protection","tag-chatbot","tag-copilot","tag-in-brief"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.1 (Yoast SEO v25.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers&#039; 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