Data Security

Microsoft Teams hit by widespread outage

Microsoft responds to reports of MS Teams outage

Microsoft reported an an outage this morning with its Teams messaging platform sparking a flurry of outrage on social media from users frustrated by ongoing hiccups and disruption of the business communications tool.

Microsoft reported at 7:52 a.m. that it was investigating reports that users were unable to access the Teams web-based version of the application via their browsers.

At 9:24 a.m., Microsoft Tweeted that it “reverted a configuration change which resulted in [the] impact.” It said that early monitoring of the MS service's telemetry indicates that Teams is now seeing availability improving in America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.

Microsoft Teams has had its issues of late. Late last week, researchers from Jumpsec found a vulnerability that allowed adversaries to sidestep security controls to plant malware on targeted systems. The researchers warned as traditional routes of infection, such as inboxes and websites, become more heavily scrutinized, communications platforms such as Teams, Slack and Zoom have become a more attractive target.

While Wednesday's issues are not identified as a security issue, what made the case interesting to security experts is that others were tweeting out that the glitch did not only impact web browsers:

“It's not only the web browser, I can't connect from the desktop client on my Mac neither,” tweeted David Rousset, a Microsoft developer.

“Desktop client is down as well,” wrote Twitter user Jannick H.

Other Tweets over the past hour or two related the impact the outage was having on their day, how they depend on Microsoft Teams to do work:

“Seems a lot of issues at Microsoft daily. They want us to use their products, which affects people's day to day operations, but can't seem to figure out how to keep the lights on. Hope you fix it soon. Having a major impact,” tweeted user Enots Noryb.

Microsoft also posted that for information, users should see TM612617 in the Teams admin center.

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