An airport website, gaming systems and countless internet webpages have been knocked offline as internet users report outages - with many being tied back to Microsoft.
The Starbucks app, Costco and other sites connected to Microsoft’s Azure cloud portal, including Office 365, Minecraft and Xbox Live, were among the impacted websites. Some users on downdetector.com also reported outages with Amazon Web Services, though the tech giant denied those issues.
Heathrow Airport in London reported its website was down due to the outage. While Alaska Airlines wrote on X that the technical issues caused “disruption to key systems, including our websites.”
Microsoft confirmed the outage.
“We are working to address an issue affecting Azure Front Door that is impacting the availability of some services,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. “Customers should continue to check their Service Health Alerts and the latest update on this issue can be found on the Azure status page.”
After users reported Amazon Web Services being down, the company said it was “operating normally.” Earlier this month, an outage with AWS knocked countless popular websites offline.
Key Points
- Azure has pushed 'last known good configuration,' customers may see recovery
- Alaska Airlines says Azure issues causing 'disruption to key systems'
- Amazon denies an AWS outage is underway
Cybersecurity expert warns of scams in wake of Azure outage
20:50 , Josh MarcusScammers may try to take advantage of the ongoing Microsoft outage, according to a tech security expert.
“Tell your teams to expect potential phishing texts, calls, emails (once back up) claiming Microsoft is down because they need to “update their password, click here”, etc,” Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, wrote on X. “Criminals love to take advantage of outages to trick. Catch them!”
Azure outage is latest tech trouble for Alaska Airlines after ground stop last week
20:37 , Josh MarcusAlaska Airlines has had a seriously bad week of tech problems.
Today, the company announced that the ongoing Azure outages have caused “disruption to key systems, including our websites.”
The shutdown prompted angry messages on social media from customers, including one who posted pictures of a long line at an airport check-in kiosk.
Today’s issue come less than a week after an IT outage prompted Alaska to issue a systemwide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights, causing delays and cancellations.
Here’s Rhian Lubin’s earlier report on the ground stop.
Alaska Airlines flights are grounded nationwide over an ‘IT outage’
Azure outage comes same day as optimistic Microsoft earnings report
20:20 , Josh MarcusToday’s ongoing Azure outage hit the same day Microsoft reported its quarterly earnings.
Thankfully, company executives had some good news on the latter front.
Microsoft reported $77.7 billion in revenue, beating Wall Street predictions. It also saw better-than-expected growth in its Azure business of about 40 percent.
The company notched a 24 percent increase in operating income, too.
Microsoft blames 'inadvertent configuration change' for Azure issues
20:13 , Josh MarcusMicrosoft has identified a culprit for the ongoing issues on its Azure cloud platform.
“We have confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change was the trigger event for this issue,” the company wrote on the Azure dashboard, noting that customers using services tied to the Azure Front Door “may have experienced latencies, timeouts, and errors.”
Microsoft says that since detecting the issue it has successfully deployed its “last known good” configuration across Azure.
“Customers may have begun to see initial signs of recovery,” the company added. “We are currently recovering nodes and routing traffic through healthy nodes, and as we make progress in this workstream, customers will continue to see improvement.”
Scottish Parliament suspends voting due to technical issues
19:58 , Josh MarcusIt’s not just airports feeling the ripples of today’s Azure issues.
Voting was suspended Wednesday evening in the Scottish Parliament due to resulting technical issues.
“There is, I understand, a significant Microsoft outage affecting some products, and it is global, and that is preventing us from voting,” Alison Johnstone, Holyrood’s presiding officer, said of the problem, STV reports.
Microsoft outage shuts down website of London's Heathrow Airport
19:49 , Josh MarcusTravelers across the world are feeling the impacts of today’s Azure issues.
A significant Microsoft outage shut down the website of London’s Heathrow Airport, though the problems thus far have not caused delays or cancellations, The London Evening Standard reports.
Vodafone users in UK feel issues from Azure outage
19:44 , Josh MarcusCustomers of Vodafone, the major UK telecoms carrier, appear to also have been impacted by today’s Azure issues, Reuters reports.
One X user wrote that the company’s Voxi mobile network was having issues sending a one-time password for security purposes.
Azure has pushed last known good configuration,' customers may see recovery
19:20 , Isabel KeaneAzure has shared an update saying its “last known good configuration” has been pushed and customers will soon see recovery.
“We have pushed our ‘last known good’ configuration, and customers may begin to see initial signs of recovery. We are currently recovering nodes and routing traffic through healthy nodes, and as we make progress in this workstream, customers will continue to see improvement.”
Azure said customer configuration changes will remain temporarily blocked as they continue mitigation efforts.
Flashback: How last week's major cloud outage hit
19:15 , Josh Marcus
Microsoft 365 experiencing 'downstream impact' from Azure issues
18:59 , Josh MarcusUsers of popular Microsoft apps may be feeling the impacts of the ongoing issues with the Azure cloud, the company announced.
“Microsoft 365 services are experiencing downstream impact related to the ongoing Azure outage,” it wrote on X.
Alaska Airlines says Azure issues causing 'disruption to key systems'
18:47 , Josh MarcusMultiple airlines say the ongoing issues at Azure have impacted crucial operations.
“Due to a global outage impacting the Microsoft Azure platform where several Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines services are hosted, we are currently experiencing a disruption to key systems, including our websites,” Alaska wrote on X about an hour ago.
“Wtf is going on here?” customer Justin Abel wrote on X, along with pictures of a line at a check-in desk. “I’m going to miss my flight and your systems are unresponsive.”
Microsoft says a fix is imminent
18:19 , Josh MarcusMicrosoft says its Azure services will soon be back to normal.
“We have initiated the deployment of our 'last known good' configuration,” the company just wrote on its Azure dashboard. “This is expected to be fully deployed in about 30 minutes from which point customers will start to see initial signs of recovery. Once this is completed, the next stage is to start to recover nodes while we route traffic through these healthy nodes.”
Amazon denies an AWS outage is underway
18:14 , Josh MarcusDespite a brief surge in consumer issue reports on Wednesday, AWS says there is not an outage on its cloud platform.
“AWS is operating normally,” an AWS spokesperson told The Independent. “The only resource on the internet that provides accurate data on the availability of our services is the AWS Health Dashboard.”
Where are users reporting issues?
18:13 , Josh Marcus
Whenever there are issues with cloud service providers, their effects are soon felt across internet-connected apps and services throughout the economy.
According to unofficial crowd-sourced data on Downdetector, there has been a spike in reported issues today from users of the Xbox Network, Xfinity customers, Microsoft Teams users, and Starbucks rewards members.
Microsoft Azure announces issues of its own
17:51 , Josh MarcusWhile Amazon disputes reports of an AWS outage, Microsoft has publicly announced issues today on its Azure cloud platform.
“Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC, customers and Microsoft services that leverage Azure Front Door (AFD) may have experienced issues resulting in latencies, timeouts and errors,” the company wrote on the Azure website. “We have confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change as the trigger event for this issue.”
Amazon says service is running normally and points to corporate dashboard
17:35 , Josh MarcusThere aren’t any ongoing issues with AWS, according to Amazon.
“AWS is operating normally,” the company said in a statement.
“The only resource on the internet that provides accurate data on the availability of our services is the AWS Health Dashboard.”
That dashboard does not show any outages at the moment.
Another AWS outage hits
17:22 , Josh MarcusAnother Amazon Web Services outage has reportedly hit, impacting thousands.
We’ll be tracking whether today’s reported AWS issue has similar ripple effects to the one that hit last week.
Follow along for the latest updates
