Microsoft has blamed one of its own technicians for an error that
blocked access to its web sites for almost 24 hours on Tuesday this
week, dismissing speculation that its sites were the victim of a
major denial of service incident.
Microsoft issued a statement yesterday to say that a technician
had made the mistake when changing the configuration of routers for
its DNS (Domain Name Server) network. The DNS servers are used to
connect domain names with IP (internet protocol) addresses of the
various servers and networks that make up Microsoft's web presence.
The mistaken configuration change caused many of Microsoft's sites
to be unreachable.
Earlier on Wednesday, Microsoft had said that it could not rule
out a denial of service attack. Several leading web sites have been
the victims of such incidents. These are attacks by individuals who
flood a web server with false and untraceable requests for
information, overwhelming the system and ultimately crashing
it.
The company later said:
“This was an operational error, and not the
result of any issue with Microsoft or third-party products nor the
security of our networks. Microsoft regrets any inconvenience
caused to customers due to this issue.”
The failure of the site is likely to cost Microsoft lost
advertising revenue. Its network of sites, including Microsoft.com,
Expedia.com, Encarta.com, MSN.com and Hotmail.com, attracted around
54 million US visitors in December, trailing only AOL and Yahoo!
AdZone Interactive, an internet advertising company, estimated that
MSN.com received $33 million in ad revenues in November and that
Hotmail.com received $22.3 million.
