Microsoft Restores Global Services After Hourslong Disruption
The outage, which began Thursday, affected more than 70 countries and forced local officials to manage manual workarounds.
By Martin Reynolds ·
More than 70 countries and territories reported service failures during a global disruption that affected Microsoft 365 platforms. The company confirmed on Saturday that all services were fully restored after a several-hour incident that began on Thursday.
Problems first appeared around midday Thursday in the United States. Within an hour, the online tracker Downdetector recorded outage reports from 74 different countries and territories. Microsoft stated that the issue stemmed from a technical problem introduced during a network capacity upgrade. The company noted that the incident surfaced following a recent network change and was not related to a cyberattack or artificial intelligence agents.
The company apologized on Friday for the disruptions, explaining that engineers struggled to contain the issue for an extended period. Microsoft said it restored services gradually, a process that took longer than initially planned. The firm added that it identified a failure causing servers to become unexpectedly unavailable during automated checks. This issue specifically impacted Exchange Online mailboxes.
The interruption affected more than 430 million users of Microsoft 365 apps, including Outlook, Teams, and the AI assistant Copilot. In Denver’s Arapahoe County, the sheriff’s office noted that online bond payments were affected by the outage. Many office workers found themselves unable to send or receive emails, leading to delays in business operations across multiple sectors.
Government bodies in Japan, Singapore, Australia, Greece, and Norway reported that the episode impacted some of their operations. In Britain, the National Health Service threatened delays in emailing prescriptions to pharmacies. The National Pharmacy Association advised customers to expect longer waits. Police forces in Britain said they could not receive online crime reports and urged the public to call in urgent requests.
A trial in Manchester was halted when Judge Maurice Greene sent jurors home due to delays caused by the technology failure. The judge cited the incident as an example of the courts' reliance on digital systems. The British government stated it was working closely with Microsoft to assess the impact on public services. Officials said contingency plans were in place to minimize further disruption.
OpenAI and Anthropic reported problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools during the outage. The disruptions highlighted the dependency of various communications and technology platforms on a single provider. Lawmakers outside the United States have argued that such events demonstrate the consequences of overreliance on American tech infrastructure.
Jeremy Singer, a professor at the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, described the situation for office workers as a virtual snow day. He stated that the problem emphasized the dependence built on one company’s digital infrastructure. Microsoft said it has completed its efforts to address the underlying issue and restored service to all remaining impacted customers and regions.
