Thought Leadership
A massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack caused significant disruption to Microsoft cloud services on Tuesday. Both Azure and Microsoft 365 applications were affected, as the tech giant confirmed in a status update.
The attack was primarily directed against the Azure Front Door (AFD) and Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) components. These were flooded with a flood of requests, which led to outages in numerous services based on them. Among others, Azure App Services, IoT Central, the Azure Portal and some Microsoft 365 services were affected.
Unexpected intensification of the attack due to protective measures
Interestingly, the initial damage appears to have been amplified by a faulty implementation of Microsoft’s own protection mechanisms. Instead of mitigating the attack, the defenses amplified its impact. Microsoft responded with network configuration changes to mitigate the disruption.
Global impact and gradual recovery
The attack had a global impact on Microsoft customers. While the majority of the problems were resolved quickly, some downstream services required more time to be fully restored. Microsoft stated that the disruptions had been fully resolved by Tuesday evening.
Microsoft plans to publish a detailed report on the incident within 14 days. Experts emphasize the importance of robust security measures for companies of all sizes. Large companies with strong brand recognition in particular must expect attacks aimed at shaking trust and creating the appearance of widespread disruption.
