Aussies hit worst at Microsoft Outlook global outage

Journalists look at examples of the new Microsoft Surface Studio computer at an event in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S.,October 26, 2016. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Microsoft Outlook users are having trouble logging into their email accounts. Outlook, Microsoft’s email client, did not allow users to send emails this week due to monumental outages across the globe.

Reports of login issues and other errors related to the service have been submitted by thousands of users to Aussie Outages. Hundreds of reports per hour are submitted by Australian users who cannot access their accounts. Aussie Outages data shows that Australia and Japan are the worst hit areas.

Fifty-percent of reports claimed trouble logging in, 31 percent were complaints about the site and 14 percent involved not receiving mail. Other services such as Office, Lync and OneDrive were reportedly affected as well.

A user complained that he was unable to log in since Sunday to access his work documents on Outlook, news.com.au reports. The user described the situation as “extremely frustrating,” while on the positive side, some see it as a lesson not to store important working papers on Hotmail/Outlook.

Microsoft Outlook outages have caused problems to students, too. They reportedly were unable to complete their assignments.

Internet Explorer to the rescue

Some users claim that the solution to the Microsoft Outlook issues was Internet Explorer. A user shared on Aussie Outages that if issues persist, Outlook can be accessed through Internet Explorer. “I never normally use Internet Explorer, so it didn’t cross my mind to try,” the user wrote, adding he was able to open, receive and send emails through the said browser.

Meanwhile, a representative for Microsoft Australia confirmed issues with some of its services. “'Some customers may be experiencing difficulty connecting to some O365 services and we're working to address this,” the representative told the Daily Mail Australia.

Earlier this month, SC Media UK reported that security researchers have discovered a way to make Microsoft Outlook run Visual Basic code. It may also launch a command shell.

Sensepost senior security analyst Etienne Stalmans learned that Outlook's forms functionality can embed visual basic code. It also has an engine to process the code separated from the macro script engine, which is usually disabled by default for security purposes. This means hackers can take advantage of the other engine while macro attacks are blocked.

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