DDoS attack on Microsoft: OneDrive, Azure and Outlook stopped

Microsoft recently confirmed that a DDoS-type cyberattack caused a number of significant disruptions to its cloud services in early June. These problems have affected the use of popular applications such as Outlook, OneDrive and Azure Cloud. Responsibility for the hack was blamed on an obscure hacktivist collective known as Anonymous Sudan.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a form of cyberattack in which attacks saturate a service or website with a large amount of fictitious requests with the intent of making it inaccessible to real users. This strategy is commonly used to destabilize large organizations or companies.

Details of the attack: Storm-1359's involvement

In a blog post released on Friday evening, Microsoft provided more details about the incident. The company reported that since early June 2023, it has noticed increased traffic to some of its services, resulting in temporary outages. Upon immediate investigation, it was revealed that a threat identified as Storm-1359 was behind the attack.

Microsoft has not released clear information on who Storm-1359 is or how it is related to Anonymous Sudan. However, he said this group has a large arsenal of botnets and tools that allow them to launch DDoS attacks from various cloud services and open proxies. Microsoft has noted that the group's goal appears to be destabilization and the pursuit of notoriety. The attack on Microsoft 365 has unfortunately achieved these goals, affecting millions of users around the world.

Strengthening the security of Microsoft services

In response to this attack, Microsoft said it has stepped up the protection of its services to prevent future similar attacks. In particular, he implemented Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF), a system designed to protect applications at layer 7 (application) from various types of cyber attacks. Microsoft has also urged its customers to remain vigilant and closely monitor security updates.

The interruption of the OneDrive service and the assumption of responsibility by Anonymous Sudan

On June 9, it emerged that Microsoft was investigating an extended outage that prevented customers from accessing the OneDrive cloud file hosting service globally. A hacker group known as Anonymous Sudan has claimed responsibility for this incident.