Over 18,000 users complained about Outlook malfunctions in early June: no Microsoft confirms that it was a hacker attack, a series of DDoS attacks. The attacks would be carried out by Anonymous Sudan, a group active since this January.
Outlook, Microsoft confirms hacker attacks on email
An Associated Press (AP) article delves into Microsoft’s blog post Friday, providing some technical explanations and tips for defending against these attacks in the future. The blog does not specify whether the company was able to fix the problem or not if the attack ended on its own. But it seems that the situation has resolved the morning after the first attacks.
A spokesman said the group responsible is Anonymous Sudan, which reported the attack the same day. The group argued that its attack is lasted about an hour and a half before stopping.
Jake Williams, a former NSA offending hacker quoted in the AP article, said that “without such information from Microsoft, it is not possible to assess the impact.” So hard to tell if hackers have somehow compromised Outlook.
In 2021, Microsoft thwarted one of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded, lasting over 10 minutes with a peak traffic of 2.4 terabits per second (Tbps). In 2022, one attack exceeded 3.47 Tbps. It is not known what the traffic peak was during the June attack.
Microsoft believes the attackers, who calls Storm-1359have used botnets and tools to launch their attacksi “from various cloud services and open proxy infrastructures”. The goal was to cause disruption to the service.