Two days ago, Skype's core services were down worldwide, and it took Microsoft about 12 hours to fix the outage.
During the outage, users were unable to connect voice and video with their friends through the service, as well as see connected users or set their profile status.
In reality, all they could do was send text messages blindly.
In a statement today, Microsoft explains that the outage was caused by what it calls a “larger than usual configuration change” that disconnected all users from its servers.
Essentially and in simple terms, the service was subjected to a DDoS attack by millions of users trying to connect, after the first disconnection.
“When users tried to reconnect, heavy traffic was created and some of you were unable to use Skype’s free services, including messaging, presence, and contact list management. Others were unable to even connect to Skype, or make calls to landlines or mobiles. Skype for Business was not affected.”
the company explained.
At this time, all Skype services are operating normally and Microsoft reports that everything has been fully restored worldwide.
For the record, the service was founded in 2003 and was purchased by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion dollars (!).
The service is now available for the majority of desktop and mobile devices, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, as well as Windows Phone, iOS, Android, and BlackBerry.
It is also available in a browser via web.skype.com, without the need to install the application.
