Outlook.com hit by outages as hacktivists claim DDoS attacks

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

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https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/outlookcom-hit-by-outages-as-hacktivists-claim-ddos-attacks/

Outlook.com is suffering a series of outages today after being down multiple times yesterday, with hacktivists known as Anonymous Sudan claiming to perform DDoS attacks on the service.

This outage follows two major outages yesterday, creating widespread disruptions for global Outlook users, preventing users worldwide from reliably accessing or sending email and using the mobile Outlook app.

Outlook users have taken to Twitter to complain about the spotty email service, stating that it is affecting their productivity.

Microsoft says these outages are caused by a technical issue, posting to Twitter a series of updates switching between saying they mitigated the issues and saying that the problem is happening again.

"We've identified that the impact has started again, and we're applying further mitigation," tweeted Microsoft.

"Telemetry indicates a reduction in impact relative to earlier iterations due to previously applied mitigations. Further details about the workstreams are in the admin center via MO572252."

While Microsoft claims technical issues cause the outages, a group known as Anonymous Sudan is claiming to be behind them, warning that they are performing DDoS attacks on Microsoft to protest the US getting involved in Sudanese internal affairs.

"We can target any US company we want. Americans, do not blame us, blame your government for thinking about intervening in Sudanese internal affairs. We will continue to target large US companies, government and infrastructure," Anonymous Sudan posted to their Telegram channel yesterday.

"We hope you enjoyed it, Microsoft"

Since then, the group has been taunting Microsoft in statements about the repeated DDoS attacks on Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 services.

"Microsoft, today we played football with your services. Let's play a fun game. The fate of your services, which is used by hundreds of millions of people everyday, is under our dominion and choice," Anonymous Sudan posted to their Telegram channel.

"You have failed to repel the attack which has continued for hours, so how about you pay us 1,000,000 USD and we teach your cyber-security experts how to repel the attack and we stop the attack from our end?"

From the check-host.net URLs shared by Anonymous Sudan, they say they are targeting "Outlook," the main URL for the Outlook.com web service.

While these claims remain unverified, the service has been sluggish and plagued by a series of outages over the past 24 hours.

Outlook.com hit by outages as hacktivists claim DDoS attacks

Outlook.com is suffering a series of outages today after being down multiple times yesterday, with hacktivists known as Anonymous Sudan claiming to perform DDoS attacks on the service.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Microsoft OneDrive down worldwide following claims of DDoS attacks

Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage that is preventing OneDrive customers from accessing the cloud file hosting service worldwide, just as a threat actor known as 'Anonymous Sudan' claims to be DDoSing the service

Users who are trying to open the OneDrive website are currently seeing "Sorry, an error has occurred" and "This page isn't working right now" error messages.

"We're investigating a potential issue and checking for impact to your organization. We'll provide an update within 30 minutes," the company said in an update to its service health status page.

"We've reviewing OneDrive telemetry that captures this impact scenario to determine the source of the service access failures and begin identifying a mitigation plan."

While the company didn't provide any details on what is causing the outage, today's incident was claimed by hacktivists known as Anonymous Sudan, who some believe are linked to Russia.

They also said they took down a number of Microsoft services earlier this week in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

"Microsoft, you think we forgot you? We are motivated to teach you liars a very good lesson in honesty that none of your parents ever taught you," they said on their public Telegram group.

"Onedrive has been downed. Let's see your new excuse now."

Microsoft OneDrive down worldwide following claims of DDoS attacks

Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage that is preventing OneDrive customers from accessing the cloud file hosting service worldwide, just as a threat actor known as 'Anonymous Sudan' claims to be DDoSing the service

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[vtqhtr413]

The Microsoft Azure Portal is down on the web as a threat actor known as Anonymous Suda claims to be targeting the site with a DDoS attack. Attempting to access the portal at https://portal.azure.com displays an error message stating, "Our services aren't available right now. We're working to restore all services as soon as possible. Please check back soon." The mobile app appears unaffected at this time.

At the same time, a threat actor known as Anonymous Sudan claims to be conducting a DDoS attack against the Microsoft Azure portal, sharing an image of the page not working. Anonymous Sudan claims to be a hacktivist targeting US companies to protest the United States' involvement in Sudanese internal affairs. However, some believe this is a false flag and that the threat actors are actually Russian.

Regardless of the threat actor's origins, this has not been a good week for Microsoft, with the threat actor conducting DDoS attacks on other Microsoft web portals for Outlook.com and OneDrive, which also suffered outages at the same time.
While Microsoft has not confirmed that these outages were due to DDoS attacks, they did share the following statement with BleepingComputer yesterday, hinting that the issues are more than just a technical problem.

"We are aware of these claims and are investigating. We are taking the necessary steps to protect customers and ensure the stability of our services,"

Microsoft’s Azure portal down following new claims of DDoS attacks

The Microsoft Azure Portal is down on the web as a threat actor known as Anonymous Suda claims to be targeting the site with a DDoS attack.

www.bleepingcomputer.com