Outlook.com Spam, A Rise In The Garbage

During the past 12 hours or so, spam getting through the automated filters has risen dramatically for my Outlook account; to be clear, this is the free Outlook email service, not anything through Office 365. While I have been accustomed to a higher than average spam volume because of my account, brad @ outlook.com, I am not alone.

Starting early Tuesday afternoon, the spam hitting my account increased significantly from the standard garbage that makes its way through the filters. While I initially thought my account got added to a bunch of new lists, when asking on Twitter, it became clear that it is a wider-spread issue than my inbox.

Several users reported that the spam getting into their inbox has been elevated today with one user saying three more items showed up while writing a response to my tweet.

Microsoft is currently in the process of migrating accounts from the older Outlook.com platform to one that is based on Office 365. It’s not clear if this back-end change is the reason why spam is now easily passing through its filters but whatever the cause is, Microsoft needs to find it quickly.

I have been using the email service since the day it was announced and have never experienced spam like I have today. Let me know if you are seeing elevated levels hitting your account in the comments below.