Microsoft recently experienced a global outage caused by potential “network infrastructure” issues. The company announced on X (formerly Twitter) that they are currently investigating the situation. This outage comes in the wake of another recent incident involving CrowdStrike that led to significant delays at airports.
While not as severe as the previous outage, this event serves as a reminder of the critical role Microsoft services play in everyday operations.
We’re currently investigating access issues and degraded performance with multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. For more information, refer to MO842351 in the admin center.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 30, 2024
Microsoft alerted users on its status website about the disruption to accessing certain Microsoft 365 services, such as email. Users who can access the impacted services may experience latency or slow performance. The cause of the outage has not been officially confirmed by Microsoft, but updates are expected soon.
On the status site, Microsoft assures users that they are actively monitoring the services to resolve the issue. They have multiple engineering teams working to diagnose and address the problem. Services currently unaffected include SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams, and Exchange Online.
The issue impacts services like Entra, Microsoft 365 admin center, Intune, Power Platform, and Power BI. This outage follows the recent CrowdStrike incident, where a faulty update led to widespread system crashes across Windows devices, prompting Microsoft to offer affected users a $10 apology voucher.
CrowdStrike also warned users about potential scams exploiting the outage, particularly targeting industries like retail, health, banking, and airlines. Southwest Airlines remained unaffected due to their use of a 1992 Windows version. Scammers distributed a malicious ZIP archive named “crowdstrike-hotfix.zip” containing a HijackLoader payload to gain control of PCs. Despite efforts to rectify the situation, the outage caused significant financial losses for many businesses.
Despite ongoing efforts to prevent outages, Microsoft continues to face challenges in maintaining system stability.
