NAIROBI, Kenya- Microsoft has successfully resolved a global outage that impacted several of its services, including Outlook and the popular game Minecraft.
The company revealed that the disruption was caused by a cyber-attack combined with a failure in their defensive measures, affecting users for almost 10 hours.
Earlier, Microsoft issued an apology for the incident, which saw thousands of users reporting issues with services like Microsoft 365, Azure, and even its cloud systems Intune and Entra.
The outage, triggered by a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, was exacerbated by an error in the implementation of their defenses.
DDoS attacks overwhelm online services with massive amounts of internet traffic, rendering them inaccessible.
In a statement on the Microsoft Azure website, the company detailed the issue: “While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defenses amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it.”
This latest disruption comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left around 8.5 million Microsoft systems inaccessible due to a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
The outage extended beyond Microsoft’s immediate services, impacting several other platforms reliant on their infrastructure.
Cambridge Water, for instance, reported disruptions to their online services. Similarly, the HM Courts and Tribunals Service in England and Wales noted issues with multiple online platforms, while some NatWest customers faced difficulties accessing web pages.
Dutch football team FC Twente also faced challenges, with their ticketing website and club app going offline. As Microsoft scrambled to implement a fix, which eventually showed improvement, the ripple effects were felt across various sectors.
The timing of the outage was particularly unfortunate for Microsoft, coinciding with the release of their latest financial update.
Azure, a key profit driver for Microsoft, has seen slowed demand in recent months, unsettling investors. Despite an overall revenue increase of 15pc to $64.7 billion, and an 11pc rise in profit to $22 billion, the company’s shares dropped by 2.7pc in after-hours trading following the report of weaker-than-expected growth in the April-June period.
The recent global computer outages highlight the ongoing challenges in cybersecurity and the critical importance of robust defense mechanisms in an increasingly digital world.
