Microsoft says cyber-attack triggered latest outage

Recently, Microsoft, a major technology company, experienced a significant outage that affected many of its services, including email and gaming platforms. This outage lasted for nearly 10 hours and caused numerous users to report difficulties accessing Microsoft products. According to Microsoft, preliminary investigations revealed that the outage was triggered by a cyber-attack, which is an attempt to disrupt or damage computer systems. The company also acknowledged that their defenses were not strong enough to prevent this attack. This incident comes on the heels of another major outage that occurred less than two weeks prior, which left approximately 8. 5 million computers using Microsoft systems unable to function due to a flawed software update from a cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike. The recent outage was linked to a type of cyber-attack known as a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack. In a DDoS attack, a website or online service is overwhelmed with excessive internet traffic, making it difficult or impossible for users to access the service. Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert, expressed his surprise at the recurrence of such a serious outage affecting Microsoft’s online services, stating that one would expect the company’s network infrastructure to be highly secure. Microsoft reported that the outage impacted their cloud computing platform, Microsoft Azure, which supports many of their services, including Microsoft 365, which encompasses tools like Microsoft Office and Outlook. Other systems, such as Intune and Entra, were also affected. Following the incident, Microsoft implemented a fix that showed signs of improvement and committed to monitoring the situation closely. They issued a sincere apology for the inconvenience caused to users. The outage not only affected Microsoft’s services but also had a ripple effect on other companies that rely on Microsoft’s platforms. For instance, Cambridge Water reported that their website was experiencing issues due to the global problems with Microsoft Azure, which impacted services like MyAccount and PayNow. The HM Courts and Tribunals Service, responsible for managing criminal, civil, and family courts in England and Wales, also faced disruptions. Additionally, some customers of NatWest bank reported difficulties accessing their webpages, which were linked to the issues experienced by Microsoft Azure. A spokesperson for NatWest confirmed that the problem had been resolved and that their webpages were functioning normally again, apologizing to customers for any inconvenience caused. Furthermore, the Dutch football team FC Twente announced that their ticketing website and club app were unavailable to supporters due to the outage. This incident with Microsoft’s services occurred just hours before the company was scheduled to release its latest financial update. Microsoft Azure has been a crucial driver of profit for the company in recent years, but demand has slowed down recently, causing concern among investors. Following the announcement of weaker-than-expected growth for the April to June period, Microsoft’s shares fell by 2. 7% in after-hours trading. The company reported a 21% year-on-year increase in revenue from its 'intelligent cloud' unit. Overall, Microsoft’s revenue rose by 15% to $64. 7 billion, while profit increased by 11% to $22 billion.