By T. Jayani, JadeTimes News
A global outage impacting Microsoft products, including the email service Outlook and the video game Minecraft, has been resolved, according to an update from the tech giant. Preliminary investigations revealed that the outage was triggered by a cyber attack and an inadequate defensive response.
Earlier, Microsoft issued an apology for the incident, which lasted nearly 10 hours and caused thousands of users to report problems with Microsoft services. This incident comes less than two weeks after a major global outage rendered around 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible. That outage, affecting sectors like healthcare and travel, was caused by a flawed software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Microsoft explained in an update on its Azure cloud computing platform website, "While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, initial investigations suggest that an error in our defensive implementation amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it." DDoS attacks overload a website or online service with internet traffic, rendering it offline or inaccessible.
Computer security expert Professor Alan Woodward commented, "It seems slightly surreal that we’re experiencing another serious outage of online services from Microsoft. You’d expect Microsoft’s network infrastructure to be bomb proof."
An earlier alert on Microsoft's service status website indicated that the outage affected Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing platform underpinning many of its services, and Microsoft 365, which includes systems like Microsoft Office and Outlook. It also listed cloud systems Intune and Entra among those impacted.
Microsoft stated that it had implemented a fix for the issue, which "shows improvement," and would monitor the situation "to ensure full recovery." The company apologized for the inconvenience in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The outage affected various services relying on Microsoft's platforms, including Cambridge Water, which reported issues with several services such as MyAccount and PayNow due to the Microsoft Azure problems. The HM Courts and Tribunals Service in England and Wales acknowledged issues with "multiple online services," and some NatWest customers also experienced difficulties. A NatWest spokesperson told to us, "We are aware that some customers experienced difficulties accessing our webpages today. This was linked to the issues reported by Microsoft Azure, which has affected some Microsoft services globally. The issue has now been resolved and our webpages are functioning as normal. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience caused."
Additionally, Dutch football team FC Twente informed fans via a tweet that their ticketing website and club app were unavailable due to the outage.
The problems with one of Microsoft's premier products occurred just hours before the company was scheduled to release its latest financial update. Microsoft Azure has been a significant profit driver for the company in recent years, but recent months have seen a slowdown in demand, unsettling investors. Shares in Microsoft dropped by 2.7% in after hours trading on Tuesday after the company reported weaker growth than expected for the April -June period. Revenue in the "intelligent cloud" unit increased by 21% year on year for the quarter, with overall revenue rising 15% to $64.7 billion (£50.4 billion), and profit climbing 11% to $22 billion.
