The Cloud based services in the Texas region were shut down over the holiday after a report of temperature spike at one of their coolant plants. Around 2:30am PDT, Microsoft detected a temperature anomaly at one of their data storage plants in Texas and shut it down to prevent a cascading failure.
Azure support, an online resource was the main victim of this shutdown. This service affects Microsoft 365, the email service, because even though they don’t use it as a main component, they use their authentication service Azure Active Directory.1 As it was, the service was only knocked out in the South-Central US and the outlying areas due to the shutdown procedures. As of this writing, some of the services are still in the process of recovering. However, most functions are still working albeit at more restricted capacity until the issue is fully evolved.
This highlights a critical issue in Cloud based services. As more people use Cloud based services, they are dependent upon other companies’ securities and protocols. Entire companies could be shut down due to a cyber breach or a system failure of their providers. Mike Smith, President and CEO of Axis Insurance Services said, “We continue to see claims relating to dependent business income from Cloud based providers. Companies may secure their own systems, but they seldom read the fine print when it comes to their service providers. Click Here to learn more about Cyber Coverage.
