Microsoft resolves global outage impacting outlook and minecraft

Redmond: As per reports, Microsoft has announced the resolution of a global outage that affected several of its products, including the email service Outlook and the video game Minecraft. The technology giant attributed the disruption to a cyber-attack and an inadequate defense response.

The outage, which lasted nearly 10 hours, prompted Microsoft to issue an apology as thousands of users reported issues with various services. This incident comes just under two weeks after a significant global outage impacted 8.5 million computers due to a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, affecting sectors such as healthcare and travel.

An update on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform's website indicated that the initial cause was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. However, a misconfiguration in the company’s defenses exacerbated the attack's impact instead of mitigating it. DDoS attacks typically overwhelm online services with excessive internet traffic, rendering them inaccessible.

The outage impacted Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365, including services like Microsoft Office and Outlook, as well as cloud systems Intune and Entra. Microsoft reported that it had implemented a fix and was monitoring the situation to ensure full recovery.

Other services relying on Microsoft's platforms were also affected. Cambridge Water reported issues with its website, including services such as MyAccount and PayNow. The HM Courts and Tribunals Service in England and Wales acknowledged problems with multiple online services, and NatWest bank customers experienced difficulties accessing web pages, linked to the Microsoft Azure issues.

Dutch football team FC Twente informed fans that its ticketing website and club app were unavailable due to the outage.

The issues with Microsoft’s services arose just hours before the company was scheduled to release its latest financial update. Despite the recent challenges, Microsoft Azure has been a significant profit driver for the company. However, slower demand in recent months has concerned investors. Following the report of weaker-than-expected growth in the April-June period, Microsoft’s shares dropped by 2.7 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday. The company reported a 21% year-on-year increase in revenue for its "intelligent cloud" unit, with overall revenue rising 15% to $64.7 billion and profit increasing by 11 percent to 22 billion dollars.