REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 25, 2001 — During the morning of Jan. 25, Microsoft was the target of a denial of service attack against the routers that direct traffic to the company’s Web sites. As a result, access to some of the Microsoft Internet properties, including Microsoft.com and MSN.com, was intermittent for many customers throughout this morning.
Microsoft’s global networking team quickly determined that today’s issue was completely separate from yesterday’s outage, and has taken a number of steps to address the issue. Currently, all sites are available to customers.
This type of denial of service attack is not related to any Microsoft product. Such an attack is an attempt to interfere with the routers in one of Microsoft’s Internet data centers. Microsoft’s servers were running normally throughout the event, but the attack prevented access to some of the company’s Web sites.
It is unfortunate that an individual or group of individuals would engage in this kind of illegal activity. Microsoft has made the FBI aware of this situation, and has taken immediate steps to ensure our customers can gain access to our Web sites. These steps will also make sure that our networks have improved protection from this type of attack.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused customers, and want to assure our customers that we will be taking more steps in the days and weeks ahead to further protect them and continue to provide a great Web experience.
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For more information, press only:
Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom, (503) 443-7000, [email protected]
