Multifactor authentication issue hitting North American Azure, Office 365 users

A widespread multifactor authentication (MFA) issue is hitting a number of Microsoft customers in North America this morning, October 18. The exact cause of the problem is not clear at the moment, but Microsoft’s engineering team says it is working on it.

I’ve heard from some customers that they’ve been affected since at least 10 a.m. ET.

Microsoft’s Azure status page currently (as of 11:15 a.m. ET) says:

“Customers in North America are experiencing issues with Sign-in when Multi-Factor Authentication is enabled. Engineering team is currently investigating the issue and will send out an update as soon as possible.”

The Microsoft 365 Status twitter account, as of 10:45 a.m. ET, said:

“We’re investigating issues where users may be unable to access the admin center when using MFA. We’ll provide an update shortly.”

I’ve asked Microsoft for an update. No word back so far.

Users are reporting they cannot sign into Office 365 or access any of their Office 365 apps and services. Office 365 uses Azure Active Directory for authentication.

This is not the first time that a widespread MFA issue hit Azure and Office 365 customers.In November 2018, MFA issues hit a number of Azure and Office 365 customers in two separate incidents in two consecutive weeks. 

Update (11:20 a.m. ET). The Azure status page now says: 

“Starting at approximately 13:42 UTC 18 Oct 2019, customers in North America are experiencing issues with Sign-in when Multi-Factor Authentication is enabled. Engineering team is currently investigating the issue and will send out an update as soon as possible.”

Update (11:30 a.m. ET). The @MSFT365Status account says Microsoft has confirmed “multiple Microsoft 365 services are impacted by the MFA outage.”

“We’re reviewing system logs to identify the source of the problem. We’ll continue to post updates via MO193431 and on http://status.office.com.”

Update (11:40 a.m. ET). The status.office.com page now says

“User Impact: Users may be unable to sign in to Microsoft 365 services.

More info: Users may not receive authentication requests via phone call, SMS or within their authenticator app.

Current status: We’re analyzing authentication logs to isolate the cause of the issue.

Scope of impact: This issue could affect any of your users if they utilize MFA to access Microsoft 365 services.

Next update by: Friday, October 18, 2019, at 4:30 PM UTC”

Update (12:20 p.m. ET): Microsoft’s Azure account says the outage began at 9:30 a.m. ET and that the company is still looking into all kinds of possible causes.

“We are aware that customers in North America are experiencing issues with completing MFA challenges. This issue started at approximately 6:30 AM PST and is ongoing.  We are aware of how critical this is to your business and security. We are actively investigating the issue as our absolute top priority and working for the fastest possible resolution.

At this point, we are investigating potential root causes including but not limited to config changes, recent patches and networking issues, but we have not isolated any root cause or mitigation yet.”

Update (3 p.m. ET): Microsoft says the issue was resolved around 12:50 p.m. ET. A root-cause analysis will be available in the coming days, officials say

“Preliminary root cause:

 Engineers are continuing to investigate root cause. A follow up RCA will be provided in the coming days.  

Mitigation:

 Engineers took corrective action to fully mitigate the incident. Further details on mitigation actions will be provided in the RCA.  

Next steps:

Engineers will continue to investigate to establish the full root cause and prevent future occurrences.”

Article source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/multifactor-authentication-issue-hitting-north-american-azure-office-365-users/#ftag=RSSbaffb68