Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Office 365 Users in Europe, Asia, and Americas Who Have Enabled Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Are Impacted by an Outage (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the outage-report dept.

New submitter neo00 writes: Office 365 users in Europe, Asia, and Americas are impacted by a wide-spread outage causing users who have Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled by default policy to be unable to login to Office 365 and other services reliant on Azure Active Directory. According to The Register: "Microsoft confirmed that there were problems from 04:39 UTC with a subset of customers in Europe and Asia-Pacific experiencing 'difficulties signing into Azure resources' such as the, er, little used Azure Active Directory, when Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled. Six hours later, and the problems are continuing."

The Office 365 health status page has reported that: "Affected users may be unable to sign in using MFA" and Azure's own status page confirmed that there are "issues connecting to Azure resources" thanks to the borked MFA."

Official Azure status updates are published here.


12 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. I'm relieved by bensafrickingenius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been battling this all morning -- took a break to read some Slashdot. :-) I guess I can stop battling it now!

    --
    I am not left-handed, either!
    1. Re:I'm relieved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The best thing about going to the cloud, is when something breaks because of Microsoft your clients believe you.

      When it's in house, the accountants ALWAYS think it would be better on the cloud....

    2. Re:I'm relieved by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But how many times has this happen with Microsoft, vs it happening in your office.

      On Friday, no one could use our new Microsoft VPN's MSMFA. We had to wait until late Friday, after working hours, for whatever patch/update/change was made to be rolled back before it worked.

      Today we have MFA (which sucks in general) going wonky.

      Not long ago we had the latest "upgrade" to Windows 10 deleting people's files. Fortunately it was never pushed out to the masses but only because non-Microsoft testers picked up on the issue.

      I could go on, but you should be getting the point. This is becoming a regular occurrence now that "the cloud" is the be all and end all to everything.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    3. Re:I'm relieved by spacepimp · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is the third significant outage to occur (impacting bulk users)in the three months since my company has been migrated to O365. There were some affected users last week as well with being prompted for repeated log ins to the servers.

    4. Re:I'm relieved by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >But how many times has this happen with Microsoft, vs it happening in your office.

      For MS Office applications, never.
      They were local and you could just run them.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    5. Re:I'm relieved by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ever since we upgrade to 365 I get prompted 100 times a day for my password. Regardless if I ask it to remember. Regardless of any workarounds.
      Everyone here hates it too.

      I don't understand paying so much money for a product that works progressively worse with each iteration.

      --
      I tend to rant.
  2. Cloud Upshot by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess the upshot of having your business tied to the cloud is when you have an outage there is a good chance non of your competitors/customers/etc can do any work either!

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  3. The Cloud! by TheDarkener · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Move all your productivity to the cloud, they said.

    It will be more productive, they said.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  4. Why I prefer to own software instead of renting ? by Crashmarik · · Score: 3

    I never have to worry about crap like this.

    Seeing as I am still running Office 2003 I also don't have to worry about endlessly paying for product I already have as well.

  5. This is the 3rd major outage for MS in 3 weeks by the_skywise · · Score: 4, Informative

    XBox live refused to authenticate digital purchases.
    Windows 10 refused to authenticate activations.
    Now Office365 refuses to authenticate 2FA.
    Bad maintenance or are they being systemically hacked?

  6. If it lives in The Cloud, by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    then you don't own it, no matter how much you paid for it. Cloud storage, (where you can maintain local backups), is one thing. Cloud applications, (where you can be denied the use of software you paid for, either through technical difficulties or at the whim of the provider), are quite another. 'The Cloud ate my homework!'. Too bad kid, you should have known better than to trust your homework to The Cloud. You'd have had a better chance with the dog - at least he might feel some loyalty toward you. Microsoft and its brethren don't give a rat's ass about your welfare.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  7. Re:pftt... by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Brilliant: First hotfix... not really working... Second hotfix......close but still no sigar.... Third hotfix...
    And no answer on the most important part: Why a hotfix is required in the first place. Why did they, yet again, manage to get into a situation where Azure is FUBAR.

    Back in 2014 MS decided that it no longer needed QA. All the QA people either left or moved into dev if they could. Since that time they've had one embarrassing mistake after another. Hardly a coincidence.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.