RIT cybersecurity lecturer says Microsoft outage is a wake-up call for backup communication plans

RIT cybersecurity lecturer says Microsoft outage is a wake-up call for backup communication plans Adelisa Badžić News10NBC Microsoft continues to work through complete server shutdown ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Microsoft services were down for more than 24 hours, disrupting businesses, schools, and organizations around the world. News10NBC’s Adelisa Badzic spoke with Jonathan Weissman, Principal Lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity at Rochester Institute of Technology, about what happened and its impact. Weissman said, “A core process on a number of servers became overwhelmed and traffic was redirected to other servers.” He said this put a great strain on those servers, which then had issues as well. Later, Microsoft said a core component that performed health checks on servers failed, causing servers to be marked unavailable and subsequently removed from service, Weissman said. “It’s like a four-lane highway where cars from the left two lanes need to merge into the right two lanes, causing a great strain on those right two lanes,” Weissman said. The outage affected major Microsoft services, including Outlook, Teams, and Xbox, as well as companies like ChatGPT and Anthropic that rely on Microsoft integration, Weissman said. Weissman said, “This outage affected businesses, police departments, governments, schools, and more, because they couldn’t perform their day-to-day tasks.” Microsoft gradually restored service, checking capability at each stage, but some areas and users still did not have access while crews continued working to bring everyone back online. Weissman said, “Microsoft was optimistic when they brought back a number of servers, but unfortunately, they started to fail again, and we’re out of service.” Local organizations, including the City of Rochester, hospitals, and the Rochester Police Department, said they adjusted communication methods during the outage but reported that things went smoothly and services were working to come back online. Weissman said, “This should be a wake-up call for companies that they need alternate platforms for communication, collaboration, and their day-to-day functions.” Microsoft has not confirmed that everything is back to normal, but a recent network status map showed most regions as healthy. RELATED: Outlook restored for many users amid day two, tracking impact on Rochester area Is Outlook down? Widespread outage hits Microsoft apps