My outlook account notices some unusual IMAP Login from Microsoft at Redmond

Anonymous
2022-07-12T08:27:40+00:00

I'm noticed from Microsoft Account Service that my outlook account has been exposed some IMAP Logins from each of the IPv4 addresses at 13.101.0.0-13.101.255.255 since 2022-07-11 JST informed as "unusual activity".

And I found with using whois service that these IP may be managed by Microsoft and placed at Redmond city in US.

Yeah I changed PW in usual way but these access can't stop anyway, so I'm guessing this is a specification for Outlook service.

But at the same time I am afraid of some attacks to Outlook service or Microsoft's collection of users data.

Does Anyone know some information about these kinds of access?

I already used technical help service of online chats in Japan, but he said that he doesn't have some clear idea.

Notification

Thanks to any users to read this thread and report the same issue.

I guess you all are as anxious as I am, but I'd like you to just keep focus on the topic of "unusual activity" from 13.101.0.0/16 here.

While many attacks on login to some system will happen all the time around the world, Thus this case is unique in that it's coming from IPv4 addresses inside Microsoft.

And here we hope to solve this strange problem.

Thank you for your cooperation.

S.E.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Account management, security, and privacy

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2022-07-19T22:42:18+00:00

User @Chezlong Just placed this on my forum post

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/unusual-account-activity-from-ms-ip-addresses/974cc1c1-232f-44a2-b0eb-0f378fd2c801?page=5:

Finally got to talk to someone at MS- this was their reply:

Thank you for the information. Please be advise that Microsoft is aware of this known issue already. This started to happen even last week and we are already working with this matter. We even have created a ticket number for this issue while it is still happening.

The ticket number for the emerging issue is INC31680156.

So they are on it, but no idea when it will be fixed.

[EDIT] They also confirmed that the account was secure, no need to change passwords, etc

AND

Found the following on thread https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook\_com/forum/all/outlook-mail-account-unusual-activity/6cfb226f-8cd7-41ae-bd0a-a80d100af543?page=9

posted by user @Pierre-LucMorais:

I have looked for other means to communicate to MS and I found an “official” thread to post this problem. Your mile may vary but i’ve had a reply on my thread and encourage ppl to try using them as well ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoft/comments/o22lfc/microsoft\_official\_support\_thread/

They’ve responded that it is a backend accessing the service and a known issue.

Hoping this helps

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Anonymous
2022-07-22T15:39:05+00:00

Outlook email users alerted to suspicious activity from Microsoft-owned IP address—
People turn amateur sleuths to discover that the source of all those sign-ins seems to be in Redmond
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/21/outlook_sign_ins/
Article has an update at the end:

Updated at 09.33 UTC on 22 July 2022 to add:
Following publication of this article, Microsoft sent us a statement:
"We're working to resolve a configuration issue causing some customers to receive these notifications in error," said a Microsoft spokesperson via email.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-07-14T01:59:47+00:00

    Writing to the Microsoft Agent / Moderator ...

    You need to flag this to Microsoft security engineers for investigation right away. Microsoft may have a major security issue to attend to.

    I've had the same happen to 5 Microsoft email accounts in our family so far since July 10th 2022 with intrusions coming from multiple 13.101.5x.xx IP addresses. Whois lookups show that the IP address range belongs to Microsoft and typically Azure. We have never used Azure.

    From what I understand, Azure services are being misused by Azure account holder(s) to intrude into personal email accounts on Hotmail/Outlook/Live on a massive scale. So far, our 5 accounts have been accessed multiple times at different times of the day.

    Just guessing based on the timing of these intrusions, the attacker is accessing the email accounts just before our email clients (which are on different family computers) are accessing the same accounts. That makes me guess that the attacker is intercepting and replaying the POP3/IMAP requests from my email client.

    My searches online for similar issues resulted in nothing useful, until I found this post. Hence I'm writing here. Please let me know if there's a way to contact someone else at Microsoft to report details. Thanks

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-13T17:11:46+00:00

    Hi Soluna Eureka ,

    Good day!

    You did the right thing, there's a possibility someone (any user, not necessarily from Microsoft) attempted to take control with your account using an Azure account/device. Then tell them it's not necessarily mean Microsoft.

    We look forward to your response. If you have other clarifications on this question, you can get back to us by replying to this post.   Truly Yours,FatimaMicrosoft Moderator

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-13T11:13:55+00:00

    I connect to my Outlook account from only macOS with default mail client

    And really I'm not sure about using Azure account or Azure Device.

    I just heard about it from my roommate that he had same problem.

    OK, now I try to use 2 factor authentication, and I recommend him the same way.

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