Microsoft is actively investigating and attempting to repair the damage that has brought down a lot of its international cloud-based services. Microsoft Teams, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft 365, and even Xbox-related services are reportedly experiencing problems.
A “recent change to an authentication system” has brought down Microsoft 365 services. Microsoft is actively rolling back the changes, but the modifications have severely affected users. Incidentally, several Microsoft services are facing login, authentication, and hence, usage issues.
Microsoft frantically addressing authentication issue impacting Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, as well as Xbox Live:
A global outage and gradual recovery of several of Microsoft’s services and platforms is underway. Users who are facing login and usage issues while using Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, as well as Xbox Live, should stay calm, and wait for services to resume.
Microsoft has acknowledged that around 3:30 PM ET, the company recorded problems with authentication. Incidentally, this is the first major Microsoft Teams outage since the service went down back in September.
We are currently rolling out a mitigation worldwide. Customers should begin seeing recovery at this time, and we anticipate full remediation within 60 minutes. Additional information can be found at https://t.co/AEUj8uAGXl or under MO244568 if available.
— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 15, 2021
Back in 2020, Microsoft had blamed the outage on a configuration change. This time too, the company claims “a recent change to an authentication system” has brought down some Microsoft 365 services.
Besides some Microsoft 365 services, other critical backend platforms such as Azure Active Directory are also reportedly facing problems. Additionally, Microsoft’s Xbox prepaid codes may not work for some users. Even the Xbox party chat might fail to work or to deliver chat messages.
Microsoft rolling back configuration changes to authentication system to mitigate the impact:
Microsoft has indicated that it is rolling back configuration changes to the authentication system. The company may have taken this decision probably because the new configuration is broken beyond repair or it may take substantial time to address the problems.
…and there you have it folks… @MicrosoftTeams is down and out!
As the Director of IT for my organization. I can honestly say.. my anxiety levels are slightly heightened. pic.twitter.com/dcT7Lllz9e
— Justice P. Sikakane, Sr. 🇨🇦 (@JusticeSikakane) March 15, 2021
The outage, in fact, was caused because Microsoft indicated it was dealing with “technical difficulties while rolling back the problematic update. The company added: “We’re working on resolving those issues while we explore additional remediation options in parallel.”
According to the most recent update on the developments, Microsoft has identified the underlying cause of the problem and is taking steps to mitigate the impact. For updates, users could check out the Azure status page, the Office status page, or Twitter.
Just lost my 5th period class after @MicrosoftTeams crashed. 7th period is in jeopardy… https://t.co/ynYAUvyxUt
— Su Ring (@Motley_Su) March 15, 2021
The ongoing outage has affected Microsoft Teams users across the world. The platform currently has more than 115 million daily active users. Right from corporate organizations to schools, and from service providers to public offices, people are using the platform as a reliable communication tool amid the pandemic.
Microsoft is already dealing with a massive and focused attack on Exchange Servers. It is not immediately clear if the cybersecurity attack has anything to do with the ongoing issues.