Microsoft has faced a global outage affecting, among others, the Outlook email service and the Minecraft video game, the tech giant announced in an update, according to the BBC.
New problems for Microsoft. PHOTO Archive
The incident comes less than two weeks after a major global outage left about 8.5 million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, affecting healthcare and travel, after a faulty software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
The firm said that preliminary investigations show that the recent outage was caused by a cyber attack and the failure to adequately defend against it.
The company previously apologized for the incident, which lasted nearly 10 hours and prompted thousands of users to report problems with Microsoft services.
“Although the initial triggering event was a DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack… initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defense system amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it,” said an update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform.
DDoS attacks work by flooding a website or online service with internet traffic in an attempt to take it offline or otherwise make it inaccessible.
“It seems slightly surreal that we are dealing with another serious disruption of online services from Microsoft. You’d expect Microsoft’s network infrastructure to be resilient,” said Professor Alan Woodward, an expert in computer security.
Earlier, a service status alert on the tech giant’s website indicated that the outage affected Microsoft Azure – the cloud computing platform behind many of its services – and Microsoft 365, which includes systems such as Microsoft Office and Outlook.
Its Intune and Entra cloud systems were also listed among those affected.
Microsoft said it has implemented a fix for the problem, which “shows improvement,” and that it will monitor the situation “to ensure full recovery.”
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused”Microsoft said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Who was affected?
The outage appears to have also affected other services that rely on Microsoft platforms, with Cambridge Water being among those affected.
“Due to worldwide issues with Microsoft Azure, an issue with our website is affecting several services, including MyAccount and PayNow,” the company said in a post on X.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service – which is responsible for running the criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales – said it was aware of problems with “multiple online services”.
Some NatWest customers have also reported problems.
A spokesman for the bank told the BBC: “We are aware that some customers have experienced difficulties accessing our web pages today. This was related to issues reported by Microsoft Azure that affected some Microsoft services globally. “The issue has now been resolved and our web pages are working normally. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience caused.”
The problems with one of Microsoft’s most important products emerged hours before the tech giant presented its latest financial update.
In recent years, Microsoft Azure has been one of the main profit drivers for Microsoft.
But demand has slowed in recent months, rattling investors.
The company’s shares fell 2.7% in after-hours trading on Tuesday, after the company reported weaker-than-expected growth in the April-June period.
Revenue from the “intelligent cloud” unit rose 21 percent from a year earlier in the quarter, Microsoft said.
Total revenue rose 15% to $64.7bn (£50.4bn), while profit rose 11% to $22bn.
