Microsoft says all services restored after global Microsoft 365 outage

Microsoft said on Saturday that a global outage affecting its Microsoft 365 applications used by businesses and governments across the world has ended.

"We ​have completed our efforts to address ​the underlying issue of the ⁠incident ​and ​restored service to ​the remaining impacted ‌customers and regions," the company posted on X.

Microsoft applications such as Teams, Outlook and Copilot were all hit by the outage, leading to communications problems in scores of countries. The company said it was "not aware" of any outside interference that could have been behind the outage, blaming the problem on server issues.

Timeline and scale

The outage began around 1725 UTC on Thursday according to web testing and network diagnostics company Ookla. Downdetector, which monitors online outages, logged more than 7.4 million reports of problems worldwide and received reports from 74 countries and territories in about an hour Thursday.

Microsoft first acknowledged users in the Americas were unable to access Exchange Online mailboxes at 17:54 GMT on Thursday, and shortly after warned the disruption was possibly affecting Microsoft 365 globally. Services were beginning to recover by Friday afternoon UK time, nearly 24 hours after the issues first began to emerge.

What was affected

The outage made it impossible to carry out activities such as sending emails and holding online meetings. Britain's state health service (NHS) was severely affected, with personnel forced to use paper records rather than those stored online. In the US, staff members from the House of Representatives told Politico it had set back an entire day of legislative work as everything was on Microsoft's Outlook.

In Germany, a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernization said the outage did not have a major impact on federal government functions but did significantly affect German businesses. In Florida, city email was disrupted in Boca Raton, while Wellington asked residents to call village departments for time-sensitive help. In St. Lucie County, the outage hit email for county government, the Sheriff's Office and the Fire District.

Cause and recovery

Microsoft said a recent network change exposed a problem introduced during an earlier upgrade. Some servers stopped responding again once traffic returned, so the company brought services back in stages. Microsoft said the outage was unrelated to a cyberattack or AI.

Microsoft extended the time it keeps trying to deliver delayed messages to 48 hours. Some messages could still arrive late, and some messages could be lost, according to Justin Cappos, an NYU professor and Fulbright Iceland scholar, who spoke to CBS12 News. Tech analyst Bob O'Donnell said some emails were eight or nine hours late and that delayed messages could show up out of order.

A full post-incident report will be released once Microsoft has completed a review.

Why it matters

The disruption highlights the widespread and perilous reliance of governments and businesses on a very small number of Big Tech companies. Experts said the event was a "stark reminder" of how heavily businesses and vital services rely on a small group of big tech providers.

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Sources

• dw.com: Microsoft says all services working again
• cbs12.com: Outlook working again? Why some emails may still be missing after massive Microsoft outage
• bbc.com: Microsoft says services fully restored after day-long global outage
• mpamag.com: When will Microsoft Outlook be working again? | Mortgage Introducer
• economictimes.indiatimes.com: Microsoft Outlook outage status: Is email working again? What's down, what's working and when will services resume? - The Economic Times

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.