Microsoft 365 Went Down. The Scammers Didn’t.

Microsoft 365 has been down for much of today. Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and Defender have all been affected, in North America and beyond. Microsoft says the cause is strain on its own systems after some servers went offline unexpectedly. Nothing suggests a cyberattack.

But an outage doesn’t have to be an attack to create risk. When people can’t work the normal way, they improvise, they hurry, and they trust messages they’d normally question. Criminals count on that. Here’s what to watch for over the next few days.

1. Fake “fix your account” messages

Expect emails and texts saying your password has expired, your account is locked, or you need to sign in again to restore access. They’ll look like Microsoft. They’ll also feel timely, because they are. Don’t click. If you think something’s wrong with your account, go to the site directly or call your IT provider.

2. Fake IT support calls

Someone calls claiming to be from Microsoft or your IT provider and offers to get you back online. All you need to do is install a tool or read them a code. Microsoft won’t call you to fix an outage. If a call claims to be from your IT provider, hang up and call back on the number you already have.

3. “Our email is down, use this instead”

This is the one that costs real money. A message comes in from a supplier, a client, or someone who looks like your bookkeeper. Their email is down, so please reply to a personal address, or send this week’s payment to new banking details. Verify any change to where money goes by phone, using a number you already had, not one from the message.

4. Your own team’s workarounds

When Teams and Outlook stop, staff get creative. Client files go out through personal Gmail. Quotes go over WhatsApp. Documents land in someone’s personal Dropbox. It gets the job done today, but it leaves company data in places you don’t control long after the outage ends. Tell your team what’s okay to use before they decide for themselves.

5. The catch-up rush

When service comes back, delayed email will arrive all at once and people will race through it. That’s when a phishing email gets past someone who’d normally catch it. Slow down on the first day back.

The question to ask tomorrow

Could your business run for a day without email? Not comfortably, just run. Who does your team call? Where do they chat? How do customers reach you? Which payments wait?

At Superion, our team moved to our backup chat this morning, our online chat stayed open for clients, and we sent a notice to client computers so their staff knew what was going on. None of it was complicated. It worked because the backup was already in place before today.

If today raised questions about your security or your plan B, let’s talk. → Book a security call