Risks of Relying on Microsoft Services

Microsoft allegedly blocked an ICC employee’s mailbox in compliance with US sanctions, highlighting potential risks of forced service cutoffs.

Although the probability of a sanction-driven Microsoft service outage is low, it is non-zero due to unpredictable government actions.

Organizations heavily depend on Microsoft products—Office 365, Azure, Exchange, Active Directory—making outages severely disruptive.

Outages can be extremely costly, with downtime costing up to $5,600 per minute on average and far higher for large enterprises.

A return-on-security-investment (ROSI) analysis shows low expected annual loss, limiting the budget for mitigation measures.

Modeling low-frequency, high-impact risks is challenging due to scarce data, complicating rational investment decisions.

Switching away from Microsoft is prohibitively expensive for most businesses, though some governments may prioritize other values when considering alternatives.