Microsoft, Outlook and Xbox users urged 'be vigilant' after major tech issues

Copyright dailyrecord

Last night, thousands of Microsoft users experienced hours of disruption as the firm's online Azure platform went down. While the US tech giant has confirmed that the issue has now been solved, experts are urging impacted users to remain cautious. Around 4pm yesterday, October 29, numerous services that use the Azure platform - such as Outlook, Minecraft, Microsoft Store, and Xbox - started to experience login and access problems, leaving thousands of users unable to use their apps and games. This is due to Microsoft's Azure cloud compute platform having suffered "degradation of some services", which then had a knock-on effect for a few of the tech giant's other systems, reports the Express. Microsoft confirmed in an update: "Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC, we began experiencing DNS issues resulting in availability degradation of some services." For those unsure of what Microsoft Azure is, it is a cloud computing platform that offers a comprehensive range of cloud-based tools that enable organisations to build, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft's global network of data centres. Due to providing an important feature to many businesses across the world, if this platform goes down it can have a drastic knock-on effect to other applications, resulting in a mass shut down. Thankfully, after hours of users not being able to access important apps, the US firm confirmed this morning that the Azure issue is "now mitigated" with no new reports of any issues arising on Microsoft applications. However, just because tech users now have the all clear, this doesn't mean that they can let their guard down just yet. A cybersecurity expert is urgently warning all users of Microsoft applications to be extra "vigilant", right now as the disruption in the Azure platform could give cyber crooks the ideal opportunity to release fake updates and scam innocent users out of their personal data. Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at Check Point Software, explained: "Microsoft's outage shows just how quickly the digital world can grind to a halt. "When one of the major cloud providers experiences an issue, it doesn't just affect one company; it ripples across sectors, services, and even countries. "While this appears to be a configuration fault rather than a cyber attack, incidents like this highlight how fragile our online infrastructure really is. "For individuals, it is important to be vigilant. Outages are often exploited by scammers sending fake updates or security messages." As the Azure disruption impacted thousands of Microsoft users, it is likely that scammers will find a way to con users into sharing their data. Therefore, for anyone who uses any Microsoft services, it is important to remain cautious if you receive any emails suggesting that an upgrade is needed or certain files need to be downloaded to add more security to your device or app. It is always important to check the email address that these messages come from and if there are any errors in the email itself. Additionally, if an application needs an update, this will likely be found in your app store rather than through an email.