Microsoft is investigating a problem with Defender for Office 365 that is causing legitimate Google search links to be incorrectly flagged as malicious.
Microsoft first acknowledged the issue under service alert MO1465962 at 10:30 AM UTC. Affected users are seeing a warning saying, “Opening this website might not be safe” when they try to open certain Google search hyperlinks.
The company says the problem is caused by an inaccurate security classification. Simply copying the affected link and pasting it directly into a browser does not bypass the warning.
Microsoft has also warned IT administrators that the issue may generate alerts in the Microsoft Defender portal and Microsoft Sentinel.
According to Microsoft, Defender for Office 365 Safe Links is incorrectly identifying some legitimate Google search URLs as malicious and blocking access to them. The company is working to correct the classification and resolve the issue.
Safe Links is designed to protect users from malicious links commonly used in phishing and other attacks. It rewrites links in incoming email and checks them again when users click URLs in email messages, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 applications.
Microsoft has not yet revealed how many customers or which regions are affected. The company has classified the incident as an advisory, which is generally used for service problems with limited scope or impact.
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This is not the first time Microsoft has dealt with false-positive problems in its security systems. Similar issues have previously caused legitimate emails and links to be incorrectly flagged as malicious or quarantined.
Microsoft Defender Mistakenly Blocks Legitimate Google Search Links
