Cyberattack Caused The Second Microsoft Outage? Tech Giant Says This

Tuesday's global outage of Microsoft Azure which impacted a range of different services was triggered by a distributed denial of service cyberattack, the tech giant said.

Microsoft Azure, a cloud computing platform used by companies and organisations worldwide, had confirmed the attack in a status update. It said that an error in the defence response of the platform might have further "amplified the impact" rather than initially resolving it.

Because of this, systems were temporarily down for select users of Azure, Microsoft 365 and Purview.

The company noted that connectivity issues for a "subset" of Microsoft services began around 7:45 am EST (5:15 pm IST) and lasted for nearly eight hours.

Azure Support took to microblogging site X on Wednesday morning and said, "We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused."

The outage reports on Tuesday were somewhat scattered with some companies and services witnessing some hundreds or a few thousand user complaints on Down Detector, an outage detecting platform.

However, Minecraft video game players, Dutch football club FC Twente, the UK government's HM Courts and Tribunals Service and others also reported some issues. Many of them found a way around the issue or said that the services resumed in a few of hours.

A Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson told The Associated Press that the company's customers are encountered some troubles with accessing the mobile order and pay feature in the app due to a "third party system outage" on Tuesday.

According to Azure's status report, the company is likely to publish a preliminary post-incident report within 72 hours.

Notably, Tuesday's outage of Microsoft Azure came less than two weeks after the tech giant was struck by a global outage, disrupting users' work for hours. Xbox was down and users were left to stare at blue screens on their desktops, also known as 'Blue Screen of Death'.

Computers powered by the Windows were disrupted worldwide by a faulty software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

Notably, Microsoft has been under the microscope for its cybersecurity practices. A federal cybersecurity review board in April this year had issued a report alleging a "cascade of errors" by Redmond, a Washington-based tech giant which let state-backed Chinese cyber operators break into email accounts of senior US officials.

The report spoke of shoddy cybersecurity practices, a negligent corporate culture and a lack of sincerity about the company's knowledge of the targeted breach, affecting several US agencies that deal with China.

The report concluded that “Microsoft's security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul” given the company's ubiquity and critical role in the global technology ecosystem.

Notably, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asserted cybersecurity to be a top priority for the company during an earnings call on Tuesday.