Microsoft’s flagship office suite, Outlook email, OneDrive file-sharing apps, and cloud computing platform suffered from sporadic but serious service disruptions in early June. It was later revealed that a shadowy hacktivist group, known as Anonymous Sudan, was responsible for the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The group flooded Microsoft’s sites with junk traffic. Initially, Microsoft was reluctant to name the cause, but it has now confirmed the Anonymous Sudan group’s involvement.
Microsoft Offers Few Details
Microsoft did not immediately comment on how many customers were affected, and whether the impact was global. A spokeswoman confirmed that the group Anonymous Sudan was behind the attacks. It claimed responsibility on its Telegram social media channel at the time. Some security researchers believe the group to be Russian. Microsoft’s explanation in a blog post on June 11 was slim on details. The post said the attacks “temporarily impacted availability” of some services. It said the attackers were focused on “disruption and publicity” and likely used rented cloud infrastructure and virtual private networks to bombard Microsoft servers from so-called botnets of zombie computers around the globe. Microsoft said there was no evidence that any customer data was accessed or compromised.
DDoS Attacks Can Disrupt Global Commerce
While DDoS attacks are mainly a nuisance – making websites unreachable without penetrating them – security experts say they can disrupt the work of millions if they successfully interrupt the services of a software service giant like Microsoft, on which so much global commerce depends. It’s unclear whether that’s what happened here. The impact of the attack is difficult to measure if Microsoft doesn’t provide that information.
DDoS Attacks Remain a Significant Risk
Edward Amoroso, NYU professor, and CEO of TAG Cyber, said the Microsoft incident highlights how DDoS attacks remain “a significant risk that we all just agree to avoid talking about. It’s not controversial to call this an unsolved problem.” He said Microsoft’s difficulties fending off this particular attack suggest “a single point of failure.” The best defense against these attacks is to distribute a service massively, on a content distribution network, for example. The techniques the attackers used are not old. One dates back to 2009.
Microsoft’s flagship office suite and cloud computing platform suffered from DDoS attacks by the Anonymous Sudan group. While the attacks temporarily impacted some services, there is no evidence that any customer data was accessed or compromised. DDoS attacks remain a significant risk, and the best defense against these attacks is to distribute a service massively.
Leave a Reply