Tuesday, November 12, 2024
HomeCyber Security NewsMicrosoft Confirms Hacking of Outlook & OneDrive - Layer 7 DDoS Attacks

Microsoft Confirms Hacking of Outlook & OneDrive – Layer 7 DDoS Attacks

Published on

Malware protection

Recently, it’s been confirmed by Microsoft that the current outage problems experienced by the following services of Microsoft were due to intentional Layer 7 DDoS attacks:-

  • Azure
  • Outlook
  • OneDrive

The credit for the attacks goes to a threat actor called Storm-1359 (aka Anonymous Sudan), as per Microsoft’s findings.

Microsoft observed a rise in web traffic targeting specific services starting in early June 2023, resulting in temporary availability issues.

- Advertisement - SIEM as a Service

Without any delay, Microsoft instantly started monitoring the ongoing DDoS attacks thoroughly by launching a quick investigation.

Layer 7 DDoS Attacks

Rather than targeting layer 3 or layer 4, the recent DDoS attacks have primarily targeted layer 7.

OSI Layers

To enhance customer protection against similar DDoS attacks, Microsoft strengthened layer 7 defenses by optimizing Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Microsoft discovered that Storm-1359 could use different cloud services and open proxies to launch DDoS attacks using several botnets and tools.

Moreover, here below, we have mentioned the main focuses of Storm-1359:-

  • Causing disruptions
  • Attracting public attention

In a report published recently, Microsoft provided an introductory analysis of the root cause, suggesting DDoS attacks as the potential reason behind the Azure outage, highlighting a noticeable surge in network traffic.

In a Layer 7 DDoS attack, threat actors specifically direct their efforts towards the application level, aiming to overload services by flooding them with excessive requests.

This huge flood of requests overwhelms the services, causing them to become unresponsive since they cannot handle the load.

The threat actors employ multiple DDoS methods to overpower a web service, exhausting its connection pool and causing it to accept new requests.

Types of DDoS Attack Traffic

Here below, we have mentioned all the types of layer 7 DDoS attack traffic:-

  • HTTP(S) flood attack
  • Cache bypass
  • Slowloris

Recommendations

Here below, we have mentioned all the recommendations offered by Microsoft:-

  • To protect web apps, make sure to use layer 7 protection services like Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF).
  • Stay protected against known bad bots by implementing the bot protection managed rule set.
  • Make sure to block the IP addresses and ranges that you identify as malicious.
  • Unknown and suspicious traffic should be blocked.
  • To block and limit the HTTP or HTTPS attacks automatically that have known signatures, create custom WAF rules.

Looking For an All-in-One Multi-OS Patch Management Platform – 

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Latest articles

Dell Enterprise SONiC Flaw Let Attackers Hijack the System

Dell Technologies has disclosed multiple critical security vulnerabilities in its Enterprise SONiC OS, which...

Amazon Confirms Employee Data Breach Via Third-party Vendor

Amazon has confirmed that sensitive employee data was exposed due to a breach at...

10 Best DNS Management Tools – 2025

Best DNS Management Tools play a crucial role in efficiently managing domain names and...

Sweet Security Announces Availability of its Cloud Native Detection & Response Platform on the AWS Marketplace

Customers can now easily integrate Sweet’s runtime detection and response platform into their AWS...

Free Webinar

Protect Websites & APIs from Malware Attack

Malware targeting customer-facing websites and API applications poses significant risks, including compliance violations, defacements, and even blacklisting.

Join us for an insightful webinar featuring Vivek Gopalan, VP of Products at Indusface, as he shares effective strategies for safeguarding websites and APIs against malware.

Discussion points

Scan DOM, internal links, and JavaScript libraries for hidden malware.
Detect website defacements in real time.
Protect your brand by monitoring for potential blacklisting.
Prevent malware from infiltrating your server and cloud infrastructure.

More like this

Dell Enterprise SONiC Flaw Let Attackers Hijack the System

Dell Technologies has disclosed multiple critical security vulnerabilities in its Enterprise SONiC OS, which...

Amazon Confirms Employee Data Breach Via Third-party Vendor

Amazon has confirmed that sensitive employee data was exposed due to a breach at...

Researchers Detailed Credential Abuse Cycle

Cybercriminals exploit leaked credentials, obtained through various means, to compromise systems and data, enabling...