Microsoft experiences second major outage in two weeks, attributed to cyberattack

Less than two weeks after a global Microsoft breakdown, the company has reported another outage, this time lasting 10 hours.

The outage disrupted Microsoft services such as Outlook and Minecraft. Preliminary investigations reveal that the outage was due to an unidentified cyberattack.

This incident comes just under a month after a recent outage that affected 8.5 million Windows devices and caused disruption across global healthcare and travel services. That outage was caused by an improper update via cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

An update on the website of the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform stated, “While the initial trigger event was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack... initial investigations suggest that an error in the implementation of our defences amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it.”

Read more: Microsoft announces major changes in Windows' core after crowdStrike outage

Microsoft said it had implemented a fix for the problem which “shows improvement” and that the tech giant would monitor the situation "to ensure full recovery". The company said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), “We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.”

It is pertinent to mention that two weeks ago, a faulty update via cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused a global outage across millions of Windows devices, exposing the fragility of global data networks. The recurrence of another such episode only underscores the need for improved data protection.