[8] The National Research Council recognized that the rise of the Internet simultaneously increased societal reliance on computer systems while increasing the vulnerability of such systems to failure and produced an important report in 1999, "Trust in Cyberspace".
[9] This report reviews the cost of un-trustworthy systems and identifies actions required for improvement.
[11] The move was reportedly prompted by the fact that they "...had been under fire from some of its larger customers–government agencies, financial companies and others–about the security problems in Windows, issues that were being brought front and center by a series of self-replicating worms and embarrassing attacks.
Four areas were identified as the initiative's key areas: Security, Privacy, Reliability, and Business Integrity,[11] and despite some initial scepticism, at its 10-year anniversary it was generally accepted as having "...made a positive impact on the industry...".
[13][14] The Trustworthy Computing campaign was the main reason why Easter eggs disappeared from Windows, Office and other Microsoft products.