Redmond, WA – August 1, 2024 – Microsoft has experienced another significant outage, less than two weeks after a global disruption dubbed the “blue screen of death.” The latest incident, reported on Tuesday, was caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which flooded Microsoft’s services with overwhelming traffic, rendering them inoperative for nearly 10 hours.
The recent attack affected multiple Microsoft services, including Office, Outlook, and Azure, as well as Azure App Services, Application Insights, Azure IoT Central, Azure Log Search Alerts, Azure Policy, and a subset of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview services. Notably, UK bank NatWest was among the affected entities.
Microsoft has confirmed that the outage was the result of a DDoS attack, a tactic that aims to overwhelm a service by inundating it with excessive traffic. The company noted that an error in the implementation of its DDoS defenses amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it.
This follows a major outage on July 19, caused by an error in a CrowdStrike update, which led to widespread IT system failures across various sectors, including airlines and news channels. CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, clarified that the previous incident was not a cyberattack but a software issue, which was promptly resolved.
Microsoft is actively working to address the current disruption and enhance its defenses against future attacks. Further updates will be provided as the situation evolves.
