- On 2 December, Rackspace announced that the company is investigating an issue that is affecting its Hosted Exchange environments.
- Rackspace shut down the Hosted Exchange environment to avoid any further issues while working on restoring the service.
- Although the company didn’t share the details of the security incident, some experts believe that it can be a ransomware attack.
Rackspace announced that the company noticed an issue that impacts its Hosted Exchange environment. The company powered down and disconnected the environment and investigated the extent and the severity of the incident. Analysis showed that it is a security incident.
Significant failure in the Hosted Exchange environment
In the next update, the company stated that its security and operations teams worked internally and closely with outside experts to understand the scope and impact of the issue, which involves its Hosted Exchange environment. Rackspace also assisted customers to open replacement Microsoft 365 accounts. The service stayed offline for most of the weekend and on Monday, the company announced that the problem was fixed partially.
In the announcement the company said thousands of customers’ email services on Microsoft 365 were restored the team is working on restoring email service to every affected customer. In the last update, the company offered support for customers who experience difficulties in setting up and configuring Microsoft 365 via chat or phone. However call queue hold times are more than 2 hours, which can be frustrating for some customers.
Although Rackspace didn’t disclose the cause of the incident or any technical details, some experts claim that it can be a ransomware attack, considering the time needed to restore the services. When the incident occurs, the company said,
« First and foremost, we appreciate your patience as we are working through the issue with your Hosted Exchange account, which we know impacted you greatly today. We experienced a significant failure in our Hosted Exchange environment. We proactively shut down the environment to avoid any further issues while we continue work to restore service. As we continue to work through the root cause of the issue, we have an alternate solution that will re-activate your ability to send and receive emails.
At no cost to you, we will be providing you access to Microsoft Exchange Plan 1 licenses on Microsoft 365 until further notice. Again, we apologize that this has been a major disruption to you, but we hope this will allow you to resume regular business as soon as possible. »