Microsoft Azure Globally Down – What’s Happening!

On July 30, 2024, at approximately 13:13 UTC, Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365 reported a global outage affecting a subset of its services. The issue resulted in timeouts and difficulties connecting to various Azure services worldwide.

Multiple engineering teams at Microsoft were promptly engaged to diagnose and resolve the issue. The company acknowledged the problem and provided updates on the Azure status page.

“We have multiple engineering teams engaged in diagnosing and resolving the issue. More details will be provided as soon as possible.”

Initially, the issue was reported in Europe, but it soon became apparent that the outage had a global impact, affecting customers worldwide.

It seems that Microsoft Azure is experiencing widespread issues across a large number of regions. The affected services include both Non-Regional and Regional services across the following locations:

  • United States: East US, East US 2, Central US, North Central US, South Central US, West Central US, West US, West US 2, West US 3
  • Canada: Canada East, Canada Central
  • Brazil: Brazil South, Brazil Southeast
  • Mexico: Mexico Central
  • Europe: North Europe, West Europe, France Central, France South, UK West, UK South, Switzerland North, Switzerland West, Norway East, Norway West, Germany North, Germany West Central, Sweden Central, Sweden South, Poland Central, Italy North, Spain Central
  • Asia: Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central India, West India, South India, Japan East, Japan West, Korea Central, Korea South
  • Australia: Australia East, Australia Southeast, Australia Central, Australia Central 2
  • Middle East: South Africa West, South Africa North, UAE Central, UAE North, Qatar Central, Israel Central
  • India: Jio India West, Jio India Central
Status Outage

The Network Infrastructure in these regions is currently under a “Warning” status, indicating potential disruptions or issues.

Are you from SOC and DFIR Teams? – Analyse Malware Incidents & get live Access with ANY.RUN -> Free Access

Microsoft 365 Also Down:

Microsoft is investigating access issues and degraded performance affecting several Microsoft 365 services and features. The incident, identified as MO842351, is under review, with detailed information available in the admin center for those impacted.

“Microsoft has announced that they are currently investigating access issues and degraded performance affecting multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. The issue, identified as incident MO842351, is detailed further in the admin center for affected users.”

According to the Microsoft status, These lists will change as we confirm that different services are unaffected.

Impacted services include, but are not limited to:

  •       – Microsoft 365 admin center
  •       – Intune
  •       – Entra
  •       – Power Platform

Initial indications are that the following services are not impacted:

  •       – SharePoint Online
  •       – OneDrive for Business
  •       – Microsoft Teams
  •       – Exchange Online

Current Status

As of the last update at 13:13 UTC on July 30, 2024, the investigation was ongoing, and Microsoft promised to provide more details as soon as possible.

Microsoft has mitigated and rerouted user requests to address a recent service issue. The company is actively monitoring the situation to ensure it is resolved. For the latest updates, users can visit the Microsoft status page at https://status.cloud.microsoft or refer to the incident code MO842351 in the admin center.

Now, “We’ve applied mitigations and rerouted user requests to provide relief. We’re monitoring the service to confirm resolution and further information can be found at https://status.cloud.microsoft or under MO842351 in the admin center.”

“We have implemented networking configuration changes and have performed failovers to alternate networking paths to provide relief. Monitoring telemetry shows improvement in service availability, and we are continuing to monitor to ensure full recovery.”

“Monitoring telemetry shows improvement in service availability, and we’re continuing to monitor to ensure full recovery.”

16:42 UTC: Root Cause: Azure Front Door Service Experiences Performance Issues Due to Usage Spike

An unexpected surge in usage has led to performance degradation in Azure Front Door (AFD) components, causing intermittent errors, timeouts, and latency spikes. In response, the Azure team implemented network configuration changes and performed failovers to alternative network paths to mitigate the impact.

Monitoring telemetry has indicated an improvement in service availability starting from approximately 14:10 UTC. However, some specific services and regions continue to report intermittent errors. The Azure team is actively investigating these issues and will provide an update on the ongoing mitigation efforts by 18:00 UTC, or sooner if significant progress is made.

“An unexpected usage spike resulted in Azure Front Door (AFD) components performing below acceptable thresholds, leading to intermittent errors, timeout, and latency spikes.”

“We have implemented network configuration changes and have performed failovers to provide alternate network paths for relief. Our monitoring telemetry shows improvement in service availability from approximately 14:10 UTC onwards, but we are investigating reports of specific services and regions that are still experiencing intermittent errors.”

“We will provide an update on our continued mitigation efforts by 18:00 UTC, or sooner if we have progress to share.” Microsoft’s new status update”

17:59 UTC: Network Configuration Changes Mitigate Usage Spike, Minimize Side Effects

Microsoft has updated that its recent network configuration changes have successfully mitigated the impacts of a usage spike that caused intermittent errors in certain services. However, the company admitted that these changes have resulted in some side effects affecting specific services and regions.

Azure team is actively updating its mitigation approach to minimize these side effects and is applying Safe Deployment Practices to ensure a smooth rollout. The updated mitigation approach will be deployed in phases, starting with the Asia Pacific regions and expanding to other areas.

“As we investigate reports of specific services and regions that are still experiencing intermittent errors, we believe that our network configuration changes have successfully mitigated the impacts of the usage spike, but that these changes are causing some side effects to certain services. We are updating our mitigation approach to minimize these side effects, and applying these following Safe Deployment Practices – beginning in Asia Pacific regions and then expanding in phases.”

If you are experiencing issues connecting to Azure services, we recommend:

  1. Monitoring the Azure status page: Keep an eye on the official Azure status page for the latest updates on the outage.
  2. Checking for updates: Regularly check the Microsoft Azure website and social media channels for any updates on the issue.
  3. Contacting Microsoft Support: If you are experiencing persistent issues, consider contacting Microsoft Support for assistance.

The Microsoft Azure global outage has disrupted various services, affecting customers worldwide. Microsoft is actively investigating the issue and working to resolve it as soon as possible. We will provide updates as more information becomes available.

This story is under active development. Please stay tuned for updates.

The post Microsoft Azure Globally Down – What’s Happening! appeared first on Cyber Security News.