KnowledgeOwl incident
Unsafe files warning from Microsoft Defender SmartScreen
KnowledgeOwl experienced a minor incident on April 1, 2026 affecting File and Resource CDN, lasting 1h 58m. The incident has been resolved; the full update timeline is below.
Affected components
Update timeline
- investigating Apr 01, 2026, 08:40 PM UTC
We are investigating reports of files being marked as unsafe by Microsoft Defender SmartScreen. We are working on a fix.
- identified Apr 01, 2026, 09:21 PM UTC
This issue is limited to Microsoft Edge. Someone flagged a file uploaded to a KnowledgeOwl trial account as phishing, which has since been resolved with AWS (the file and trial account were deleted). However, Microsoft Edge is now flagging all files uploaded to KnowledgeOwl as unsafe. We've submitted a report to Microsoft requesting a review. In the meantime, Edge users can help by reporting the site as safe.
- resolved Apr 01, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC
This incident has been resolved. Microsoft has reviewed and unflagged our file library. Files uploaded to KnowledgeOwl should no longer be marked as unsafe in Microsoft Edge. If you are still experiencing issues, please contact support.
- postmortem Apr 01, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC
Microsoft Edge users experienced security warnings when accessing knowledge base files due to a SmartScreen flag on our file hosting domain. No data was compromised. We have deployed additional safeguards to prevent recurrence.