Microsoft encountered a significant outage affecting its cloud-based services that impacted users globally on Thursday and Friday. The disruption affected multiple platforms including Microsoft Teams, Outlook email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneDrive, and the Copilot AI assistant. The company reported that more than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps, and roughly 90% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Copilot services.
In its status updates, Microsoft indicated that a portion of infrastructure was experiencing elevated load, with several servers becoming unexpectedly unavailable due to a configuration problem during automated checks. The company noted early signs of stabilization but cautioned that service capacity had not returned to normal levels. Microsoft extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages during recovery. The tech company stated there were no indications of a cyber-attack and committed to providing a detailed post-incident report once recovery was complete.
The outage had widespread consequences across multiple sectors. The UK’s National Health Service reported disruptions to services including remote therapy sessions, while pharmacies faced communication issues with GP surgeries regarding prescriptions. Several UK police forces advised against online crime reporting, and schools notified parents of email and Teams disruptions. Airlines including IndiGo and Akasa Air experienced email support issues, and major Japanese companies including pharmaceutical firm Taisho and shipping company Sagawa Express had to resort to manual operations.
Financial markets experienced complications as portfolio managers were unable to access email systems and trading platforms. The outage also affected AI services from OpenAI and Anthropic, which rely on Microsoft connectors. Security experts noted similarities to a 2023 network configuration issue that affected Optus, suggesting the problem involved the network layer where configuration errors forced users onto a reduced server pool, potentially creating a cascading failure effect. The UK government indicated it was coordinating with Microsoft and maintaining contingency plans to minimize disruption to government services.
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