August 1, 2024 • 7 mins
Microsoft is investigating the scope of the damage after users reported issues with Microsoft 365 and Outlook services this morning.
Monitoring website Down Detector's had thousands of outage reports - with a number of organisations affected.
Tech commentator Paul Spain says it was largely New Zealand that was impacted by this recent outage.
"This one wasn't so much of a global issue - it was very focused on New Zealand."
Update: Microsoft has since released a statement saying this outage was unrelated to the July 30 outage that was blamed on cyberattacks. It is still investigating the cause to the latest outage.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first I want to tell you about my day,
and then I'll get Paul Spain on to explain about
my day. But my day, it's lovely at the moment
doing a Heather's job. Because normally I do a breakfast
show on a rock radio station called Gold. You should
try it sometime. It's very good. And so I'm normally
up early. I'm not you know, I don't get to sleep,
and at the moment this week, I am not doing
that show. I'm doing this show that means I sleep,
(00:22):
I do some breakfast and that's lovely. Read the newspaper,
start thinking about what I'm going to say, go to
the gym. So I went to the gym at eight
o'clock today and I did a good hour and a
half workout. And as I'm coming home, hot and sweaty
and getting ready to get into it, have a shower
and start writing stuff, I get an alert that's saying
Microsoft Outlook is down. It's a global cyber attack. It's
(00:44):
involving microsofte me emails down. Therefore, we are working with
Microsoft on the problem. This caused me great consternation because
how I write my stuff is on Microsoft word through
Outlook and then share it with work on Google. So
if I'm writing at home and I can't email myself
(01:04):
and all that sort of thing, and I can't use
the Google Home to actually sort of mirror the stuff back,
how amight I get these bond mots to myself? So
I actually told my producer who phoned up and we're
talking about I said, I'm going to stick it on
my memory stick. You mean you've got a memory stick
and I've got a memory stick. You're not supposed to
bring memory sticks in because you plug them into computers,
(01:25):
they bring in viruses or viray whatever. Anyway, I got
a memory stick and I was thinking about that, and
then we figured out how to get service back. So
joining me now is Paul Spain, tech commentator and Guerrilla
Tech CEO.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Hello, Paul, Hello, how are we doing? Andrew?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, we're good now that we're back online. I'm getting
a bit tired of the Microsoft cyber attacks. What's happening here?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, you know what we know around today is it
was largely in New Zealand that was impacted. So this
one wasn't so much of a global issue. It was
very very focused on New Zealand, and it appears as
though what we're dealing with is something called a distributed
denial of service attack, which you can, if you want to,
(02:09):
sort of think of it simply. It's a little bit
like when we have a protest that floods the motorway
with tractors or trucks or some other such thing, and
you've got an adversary who is basically trying to trying
to cause problems for Microsoft and Microsoft customers by flooding
(02:30):
sort of certain areas of the Internet with too much
data or traffic as we call it, and that brings
things to sometimes to a standstill, sometimes just sort of
slows slows things down. And that's really what's what's happened today. Now,
a lot of people haven't felt the pain, but other
people have.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Like me, who wants to do this sort of thing
to us? I mean, we've got weird New zeal We've
got no enemies in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, there are always folks out to, you know, have
an impact. Sometimes that's they want to cause a financial impact,
and then they can put pressure on an organization such
as Microsoft and say, look, we're gonna you know, stop
your operation in New Zealand unless you front up and
drop you know x amount of you know, funds in
(03:22):
our direction, usually in cryptocurrency. So basically it's it's a
you know, it's used from that that perspective of a
ransom or a bribery type situation. Or it can be
you know, a country, so it can be sort of
you know, politically driven. It can be a country, uh,
you know, a particular cause that someone's trying to push
(03:44):
and to make a little bit of a point. So,
you know, these are the situations we see.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
But today's outage, we don't know who did it.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
No, I haven't. I haven't seen anything to you know,
to indicate that at this point. And there there are
often reason why an organization you might know but might
not just you know, disclose that publicly at a given
point in time. But you know, maybe we'll share you know,
further information down the track.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Was there any data taken?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
This type of attack generally the attacker has no access
to you know, to any anybody's data. It's more you
know that that as I say, they're kind of it's
like flooding a motorway. So it's not like they're they're
inside your systems, inside your building and so on, it's
more they're trying to block you get access, you gaining access,
(04:38):
rather than than them having having any level of access themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Did Microsoft were they helpful or were they hendry?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Look, you know, I think we expect organizations like Microsoft
to be really well geared up to deal with this
this type of attack, and you know, in this case, yeah,
maybe they didn't kind of get it quite right in
terms of their their ability to to you know, to
block this and deal with it correctly. Yeah. They I mean, yeah,
(05:13):
there's certainly certainly some culpability, you know, I think too,
you know, to a degree. But you know, depending on
the scale and the and the size of you know,
of this type of attack, you know, there there probably
is a point where a company can can completely block it.
And and there's a point where, yeah, those sort of
(05:37):
attackers can can have a level of impact that we've
seen other New Zealand organizations hit with this type of
attack n z X in the past. Uh, and they
you know, maybe didn't have some things quite right and
that you know, they made some changes and and you
know they eventually you know, got through that and came
back to full operation.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So Paul, one last question, Okay, and after CrowdStrike and
after realizing how many people use outlook and teams, are we,
in fact, in the business world generally relying on too
small a number of companies to provide our services techwise,
So it's easy to take out a whole country. It's
easy to almost take out a whole.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
World in simple terms. You know, I would say, yes,
I wish there was more competition, uh, you know, to
these these biggest global providers. And so if you look
at a Microsoft three sixty five, which is what the
very large majority of organizations in New Zealand use for
you know, for their core technology email and document editing
(06:45):
and storage and spreadsheets and so on, they're very very dominant.
Google have a very small slice of that that that
market here. It would be great if, you know, if
Google and others we're more competitive and that it was
split a little bit more evenly. But at the moment,
you know, Microsoft's offerings, you know, are generally, you know,
(07:05):
probably head and shoulders above the competition, and so therefore
they hold the you know, the line's share of the market.
It would be much easier if that wasn't the case,
but it's where we're at right now.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Absolutely Paul, Thank you so much. Paul from Gorilla Gorilla
Tech CEO, tech commentator.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
The first I want to tell you about my day,
and then I'll get Paul Spain on to explain about
my day. But my day, it's lovely at the moment
doing a Heather's job. Because normally I do a breakfast
show on a rock radio station called Gold. You should
try it sometime. It's very good. And so I'm normally
up early. I'm not you know, I don't get to sleep,
and at the moment this week, I am not doing
that show. I'm doing this show that means I sleep,
(00:22):
I do some breakfast and that's lovely. Read the newspaper,
start thinking about what I'm going to say, go to
the gym. So I went to the gym at eight
o'clock today and I did a good hour and a
half workout. And as I'm coming home, hot and sweaty
and getting ready to get into it, have a shower
and start writing stuff, I get an alert that's saying
Microsoft Outlook is down. It's a global cyber attack. It's
(00:44):
involving microsofte me emails down. Therefore, we are working with
Microsoft on the problem. This caused me great consternation because
how I write my stuff is on Microsoft word through
Outlook and then share it with work on Google. So
if I'm writing at home and I can't email myself
(01:04):
and all that sort of thing, and I can't use
the Google Home to actually sort of mirror the stuff back,
how amight I get these bond mots to myself? So
I actually told my producer who phoned up and we're
talking about I said, I'm going to stick it on
my memory stick. You mean you've got a memory stick
and I've got a memory stick. You're not supposed to
bring memory sticks in because you plug them into computers,
(01:25):
they bring in viruses or viray whatever. Anyway, I got
a memory stick and I was thinking about that, and
then we figured out how to get service back. So
joining me now is Paul Spain, tech commentator and Guerrilla
Tech CEO.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Hello, Paul, Hello, how are we doing? Andrew?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, we're good now that we're back online. I'm getting
a bit tired of the Microsoft cyber attacks. What's happening here?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, you know what we know around today is it
was largely in New Zealand that was impacted. So this
one wasn't so much of a global issue. It was
very very focused on New Zealand, and it appears as
though what we're dealing with is something called a distributed
denial of service attack, which you can, if you want to,
(02:09):
sort of think of it simply. It's a little bit
like when we have a protest that floods the motorway
with tractors or trucks or some other such thing, and
you've got an adversary who is basically trying to trying
to cause problems for Microsoft and Microsoft customers by flooding
(02:30):
sort of certain areas of the Internet with too much
data or traffic as we call it, and that brings
things to sometimes to a standstill, sometimes just sort of
slows slows things down. And that's really what's what's happened today. Now,
a lot of people haven't felt the pain, but other
people have.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Like me, who wants to do this sort of thing
to us? I mean, we've got weird New zeal We've
got no enemies in the world.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, there are always folks out to, you know, have
an impact. Sometimes that's they want to cause a financial impact,
and then they can put pressure on an organization such
as Microsoft and say, look, we're gonna you know, stop
your operation in New Zealand unless you front up and
drop you know x amount of you know, funds in
(03:22):
our direction, usually in cryptocurrency. So basically it's it's a
you know, it's used from that that perspective of a
ransom or a bribery type situation. Or it can be
you know, a country, so it can be sort of
you know, politically driven. It can be a country, uh,
you know, a particular cause that someone's trying to push
(03:44):
and to make a little bit of a point. So,
you know, these are the situations we see.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
But today's outage, we don't know who did it.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
No, I haven't. I haven't seen anything to you know,
to indicate that at this point. And there there are
often reason why an organization you might know but might
not just you know, disclose that publicly at a given
point in time. But you know, maybe we'll share you know,
further information down the track.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Was there any data taken?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
This type of attack generally the attacker has no access
to you know, to any anybody's data. It's more you
know that that as I say, they're kind of it's
like flooding a motorway. So it's not like they're they're
inside your systems, inside your building and so on, it's
more they're trying to block you get access, you gaining access,
(04:38):
rather than than them having having any level of access themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Did Microsoft were they helpful or were they hendry?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Look, you know, I think we expect organizations like Microsoft
to be really well geared up to deal with this
this type of attack, and you know, in this case, yeah,
maybe they didn't kind of get it quite right in
terms of their their ability to to you know, to
block this and deal with it correctly. Yeah. They I mean, yeah,
(05:13):
there's certainly certainly some culpability, you know, I think too,
you know, to a degree. But you know, depending on
the scale and the and the size of you know,
of this type of attack, you know, there there probably
is a point where a company can can completely block it.
And and there's a point where, yeah, those sort of
(05:37):
attackers can can have a level of impact that we've
seen other New Zealand organizations hit with this type of
attack n z X in the past. Uh, and they
you know, maybe didn't have some things quite right and
that you know, they made some changes and and you
know they eventually you know, got through that and came
back to full operation.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So Paul, one last question, Okay, and after CrowdStrike and
after realizing how many people use outlook and teams, are we,
in fact, in the business world generally relying on too
small a number of companies to provide our services techwise,
So it's easy to take out a whole country. It's
easy to almost take out a whole.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
World in simple terms. You know, I would say, yes,
I wish there was more competition, uh, you know, to
these these biggest global providers. And so if you look
at a Microsoft three sixty five, which is what the
very large majority of organizations in New Zealand use for
you know, for their core technology email and document editing
(06:45):
and storage and spreadsheets and so on, they're very very dominant.
Google have a very small slice of that that that
market here. It would be great if, you know, if
Google and others we're more competitive and that it was
split a little bit more evenly. But at the moment,
you know, Microsoft's offerings, you know, are generally, you know,
(07:05):
probably head and shoulders above the competition, and so therefore
they hold the you know, the line's share of the market.
It would be much easier if that wasn't the case,
but it's where we're at right now.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Absolutely Paul, Thank you so much. Paul from Gorilla Gorilla
Tech CEO, tech commentator.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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