Misdirection. If I knock _you_ offline, its not going to be that difficult for you to put together a probable suspects list with me on it.

If it's going to cost me about the same in terms of resources to target you and a bunch of other people colocated with you, it's a bit less obvious who launched it and why.

> targeting a specific public IP address

They weren't targeting Azure itself, per se, but some service which was hosted on Azure.

The IP address in question wasn't mentioned, so we're left to speculate what this was about.

It's the exact opposite of extortion. They're thrilled to spend money to buy political favor whenever possible. It's not even a drop in the bucket.

"Boeing, Microsoft and Amazon among big donors to Biden’s inauguration"

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/boeing-mi...

> They're thrilled to spend money to buy political favor whenever possible.

"Pay up or you'll have problems with the FCC/DOJ/etc."

Not saying its unique to this admin

Microsoft has succumbed to extortion recently.