Microsoft Defender Flags Google Search Results as Malware
Microsoft's Defender for Office 365 has once again flagged legitimate web links as malicious. This time, Google Search results were incorrectly identified as security threats, causing a disruption to Office 365 customers.
The incident occurred on September 2 and lasted approximately seven hours before Microsoft resolved the issue. The company stated that the problem was caused by inaccurate behavior in Defender's threat-detection process.
Microsoft's Safe Links feature, which is designed to protect collaboration tools from real threats, mistakenly blocked access to Google Search results in emails and Microsoft Teams messages. This led to confusion among affected users who were unable to open legitimate links.
In a statement, Microsoft acknowledged the incident and assured customers that its developers are reviewing the URL reputation classification process to prevent similar false positives going forward.