Microsoft blames cyber attack for Outlook and cloud outages

In early June, tens of thousands of Microsoft users reported that the company’s flagship office suite experienced a major service outage, leaving them unable to access essential remote work tools such as Outlook email and One-Drive file sharing apps. bottom.

Cause of sporadic service outages, Reuters report The incident, which lasted more than two hours, was initially unclear, according to the company. Tweet at the time. But this time, the software company has identified the cause of the failure. It was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack carried out by Anonymous Sudan, a cybercriminal group with suspected Russian ties.

Microsoft announced that a cybercriminal group was responsible for the outage the week of June 5th. statement on its website on Friday. While it didn’t elaborate on the details, the post said the attack “temporarily impacted the availability” of some services. The company also said the attackers were focused on “chaos and propaganda,” using rented cloud infrastructure and virtual private networks to attack Microsoft servers from a so-called botnet of zombie computers around the world. said it was likely.

Microsoft’s post linked the attackers to a group known as “Storm-1359,” semester Assign to a group that has not yet established affiliation. However, a Microsoft representative told The Associated Press that a group called “Anonymous Sudan” was behind the attack.

Microsoft said it had no evidence that customer data was accessed or compromised. The company did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment.

unsophisticated

While DDoS attacks are largely annoying and require a website to be compromised, security experts say that successfully disrupting a popular technology service can disrupt the work of millions of people. said to be sexual.

“DDoS is important in terms of consumer usage. [meaning] You can’t break into a website, but it’s not a sophisticated attack,” Gil Messing, chief of staff at software security firm Check Point, told CBS MoneyWatch.

Since the attack, Microsoft has taken several steps to prevent future DDoS attacks, including “tuning” the Azure Web Application Firewall, which acts as a line of defense against potential attacks, the company said in a statement.

Microsoft will need such precautions to fend off future attackers who may be encouraged by the success of the Anonymous Sudan attack, Steven Adair, president of cybersecurity firm Volexity, told CBS Moneywatch. Told.

“Apparently [Anonymous Sudan’s] DDoS efforts have met with modest success and received considerable attention. “Imitation attempts may occur, but we hope not,” Adair said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.