Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks users out of their accounts

Microsoft is investigating an ongoing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) issue preventing some customers from logging into their Microsoft 365 accounts.

"We're investigating an issue with Multi-Factor Authentication that is preventing some users from accessing Microsoft 365 services. Additional information will be provided in the admin center under MO287933, the company tweeted.

According to the company, only customers using on-premises Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) servers are impacted by this Microsoft 365 issue, with Cloud Authentication not affected.

"We've identified 503 errors from specific processing components and we're reviewing these errors to identify the source," Microsoft explained in the admin center.

"This issue could potentially affect any user if they leverage MFA and either Network Policy Server (NPS) or Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) to access Microsoft 365 services. This issue only affect on-premises users, and cloud hosted users are not affected."

In a new update to the MO287933 admin center tracking ticket, Microsoft says it's seeing the issue resolved for some of the affected users.

"We've performed scale up activities on the underlying infrastructure and we've received confirmation from some previously impacted users that the issue is now resolved for them. We also are seeing the service returning to a healthy state," the company added.

"In parallel, we continue to investigate the underlying root cause so further actions can be taken to ensure the issue does not reoccur. Engineering remains engaged to ensure that the service remains in a healthy state."

In April, a worldwide Microsoft Teams outage also prevented users from logging into their accounts, and blocked those already logged in from sending and receiving messages.

Another large-scale outage in March knocked down multiple Microsoft services one month earlier, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, Forms, Xbox Live, and Yammer following widespread Azure Active Directory login issues.

In September 2020, Microsoft customers experienced another worldwide outage showing "transient" errors which also knocked down Office 365 and related services, including Microsoft Teams, Office.com, Power Platform, and Dynamics365.


Update: Microsoft says the MFA issue is now resolved.

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