Microsoft Teams outage also takes down Microsoft 365 services

By Sergiu Gatlan July 21, 2022
What initially started like a minor Microsoft Teams outage has also taken down multiple Microsoft 365 services with Teams integration, including Exchange Online, Windows 365, and Office Online.

“We’ve received reports of users being unable to access Microsoft Teams or leverage any features,” the company revealed on its official Microsoft 365 Status Twitter account more than 8 hours ago.

Two hours later, Redmond said the issue causing the connection problems was a recent deployment that featured a broken connection to an internal storage service.

However, Teams was not the only product impacted by the outage since users also began reporting failures to connect to various Microsoft 365 services.

Microsoft confirmed the issues saying that the subsequent Microsoft 365 outage only affected services that came with Teams integration.

“We’ve identified downstream impact to multiple Microsoft 365 services with Teams integration, such as Microsoft Word, Office Online and SharePoint Online,” Microsoft explained.
As the company further detailed on its Microsoft 365 Service health status page, affected customers experienced issues with one or more of the following services:

Microsoft Teams (Access, chat, and meetings)
Exchange Online (Delays sending mail)
Microsoft 365 Admin center (Inability to access)
Microsoft Word within multiple services (Inability to load)
Microsoft Forms (Inability to use via Teams)
Microsoft Graph API (Any service relying on this API may be affected)
Office Online (Microsoft Word access issues)
SharePoint Online (Microsoft Word access issues)
Project Online (Inability to access)
PowerPlatform and PowerAutomate (Inability to create an environment with a database)
Autopatches within Microsoft Managed Desktop
Yammer (Impact to Yammer experiments)
Windows 365 (Unable to provision Cloud PCs)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient
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Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-teams-outage-also-takes-down-microsoft-365-services/)

Barracuda RMM 12 SP6 MR1 update to our cloud instances

Barracuda will be releasing Barracuda RMM 12 SP6 MR1 to our cloud instances starting on July 29, 2022. This release includes several new features, including upgrading Firewall rules for users of Avast Antivirus and the ability to send an MFA code to a mobile device using SMS.

A maintenance window is required for this upgrade during which all services will be unavailable. Please plan accordingly using the schedule outlined below.
Barracuda Cloud Maintenance Window:

US07 Friday, July 29 from 0000 – 0200 UTC-0500 for MspPortal Partners

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient
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Microsoft investigates ongoing Exchange Online, Outlook outage

By Sergiu Gatlan July 18, 2022 10:26 AM
Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage impacting Microsoft 365 services after customers have reported experiencing issues while trying to sign into, access, and receive emails on the outlook.com portal and via Exchange Online.

“We’re investigating an issue with users accessing or experiencing degraded functionality when using Exchange Online and http://outlook.com services,” Microsoft said in a tweet via the company’s official Twitter account for updates on Microsoft 365 services.

Admins were also told that they could find more information regarding these ongoing problems in the admin center under EX401976 and OL401977.

“We suspect there may be unexpected network drops which are contributing to the degraded experience and are reviewing diagnostic logs to understand why,” the company added.

While Redmond did not reveal the scale of the issue, thousands of reports have been submitted in the past 24 hours on DownDetector by Outlook and Exchange Online users who have either been unable or experienced difficulties when trying to log in or email.
Article

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient
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UPDATE 1-Amazon.com’s Ring gave police data without user consent 11 times in 2022

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) – Amazon.com’s Ring doorbell unit, which makes videos of the outside of an owner’s home, gave footage to law enforcement without the user’s consent 11 times so far this year, the company said.

Amazon said it provided the video under emergency circumstances. Senator Edward Markey, a lawmaker interested in privacy, on Wednesday released a letter from Amazon on the topic that was a response to his inquiry to the company.

“In each instance, Ring made a good-faith determination that there was an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to a person requiring disclosure of information without delay,” wrote Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy for Amazon.

The company also said that it had 2,161 law enforcement agencies on its Neighbors Public Safety Service, which allows police and others to ask Ring owners for footage.

“Increasing law enforcement reliance on private surveillance creates a crisis of accountability,” Markey said in a statement.

Amazon’s Ring said in a statement that it followed the law.

“The law authorizes companies like Ring to provide information to government entities if the company believes that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person, such as a kidnapping or an attempted murder, requires disclosure without delay,” the company said in a statement.

In the letter, Huseman declined to specify when Ring technology can capture audio and how sensitive the audio recordings are. Users can easily disable audio.

He also declined to pledge to make end-to-end encryption the default for Ring data. End-to-end encryption is available although it would disable some features.

Markey said that he was concerned that Amazon and other tech companies would begin using biometric data in their systems and noted that he and others had introduced a bill aimed at restricting law enforcement access to such information. Hold Your Breath
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

In closing you might want to remove SPYING DEVICES this is one of them

Microsoft: Phishing bypassed MFA in attacks against 10,000 orgs

Microsoft: Phishing bypassed MFA in attacks against 10,000 orgs
By Sergiu Gatlan July 12, 2022 01:02 PM

Microsoft says a massive series of phishing attacks has targeted more than 10,000 organizations starting with September 2021, using the gained access to victims’ mailboxes in follow-on business email compromise (BEC) attacks.

The threat actors used landing pages designed to hijack the Office 365 authentication process (even on accounts protected by multifactor authentication (MFA) by spoofing the Office online authentication page.

In some of the observed attacks, the potential victims were redirected to the landing pages from phishing emails using HTML attachments that acted as gatekeepers ensuring the targets were being sent via the HTML redirectors.

After stealing the targets’ credentials and their session cookies, the threat actors behind these attacks logged into the victims’ email accounts. They subsequently used their access in business email compromise (BRC) campaigns targeting other organizations.

“A large-scale phishing campaign that used adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing sites stole passwords, hijacked a user’s sign-in session, and skipped the authentication process even if the user had enabled multifactor authentication (MFA),” the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team and Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) said.

“The attackers then used the stolen credentials and session cookies to access affected users’ mailboxes and perform follow-on business email compromise (BEC) campaigns against other targets.”

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-phishing-bypassed-mfa-in-attacks-against-10-000-orgs/)

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Barracuda is the play from a security standpoint

CISA orders agencies to patch new Windows zero-day used in attacks

By Sergiu Gatlan
CISA has added an actively exploited local privilege escalation vulnerability in the Windows Client/Server Runtime Subsystem (CSRSS) to its list of bugs abused in the wild.

This high severity security flaw (tracked as CVE-2022-22047) impacts both server and client Windows platforms, including the latest Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 releases.

Microsoft has patched it as part of the July 2022 Patch Tuesday, and it classified it as a zero-day as it was abused in attacks before a fix was available.

“An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges,” Microsoft explained in a security advisory published today.

Redmond says the vulnerability was discovered internally by the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) and Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

BleepingComputer has also reached out to Microsoft earlier today with questions about how this vulnerability was used in attacks.
Federal agencies given three weeks to patch

CISA has given the agencies three weeks, until August 2nd, to patch the actively exploited CVE-2022-22047 vulnerability and block ongoing attacks that could target their systems.
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisa-orders-agencies-to-patch-new-windows-zero-day-used-in-attacks/)

You head off malware by using Bitdefender #1 in malware protection

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Hackers impersonate cybersecurity firms in callback phishing attacks

By Bill Toulas July 12, 2022 03:54 PM
Hackers are impersonating well-known cybersecurity companies, such as CrowdStrike, in callback phishing emails to gain initial access to corporate networks.

Most phishing campaigns embed links to landing pages that steal login credentials or emails that include malicious attachments to install malware.

However, over the past year, threat actors have increasingly used “callback” phishing campaigns that impersonate well-known companies requesting you call a number to resolve a problem, cancel a subscription renewal, or discuss another issue.

When the target calls the numbers, the threat actors use social engineering to convince users to install remote access software on their devices, providing initial access to corporate networks. This access is then used to compromise the entire Windows domain.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-impersonate-cybersecurity-firms-in-callback-phishing-attacks/)

Folks you need to head off these attacks (Barracuda Anti-Spam) at least scan before mail is delivered to your inbox

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

OpenSSL Releases Security Update

Original release date: July 06, 2022

OpenSSL has released a security update to address a vulnerability affecting OpenSSL 3.0.4. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review the OpenSSL advisory and upgrade to the appropriate version.

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Bitdefender releases update BEST 7.6.1.202 (Windows) Release Notes – Slow Ring

Bitdefender has released version 7.6.1.202 of Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools (for Windows) on slow ring.

The release notes are available here.

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Google patches new Chrome zero-day flaw exploited in attacks Attack details not revealed

he zero-day bug fixed today (tracked as CVE-2022-2294) is a high severity heap-based buffer overflow weakness in the WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) component, reported by Jan Vojtesek of the Avast Threat Intelligence team on Friday, July 1.

The impact of successful heap overflow exploitation can range from program crashes and arbitrary code execution to bypassing security solutions if code execution is achieved during the attack.

Although Google says this zero-day vulnerability was exploited in the wild, the company is yet to share technical details or a any info regarding these incidents.

“Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” Google said.

“We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.”

With this delayed release of more info on the attacks, Chrome users should have enough time to update and prevent exploitation attempts until Google provides additional details.

Fourth ChRome zero-day fixed this year

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, RackSpace, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”