Microsoft battles global outage hitting Outlook, Teams

Microsoft is facing difficulties restoring several of its major services following a widespread global outage that has disrupted Outlook, Microsoft Teams and its artificial intelligence platform Copilot, affecting businesses, government departments and organisations across dozens of countries.

The disruption began on Thursday, with users reporting problems accessing Microsoft’s services in more than 70 countries. The outage has affected workplace communication, email services, online collaboration and other digital operations, leaving millions of users struggling to carry out routine tasks.

Microsoft has acknowledged the disruption and said its efforts to restore normal services have not progressed as expected. The company initially reported improvements in service stability but later admitted that its recovery measures were taking longer than anticipated.

According to Microsoft’s latest updates, the disruption was caused by unexpectedly unavailable servers, which placed additional pressure on the remaining infrastructure. The increased workload affected the company’s ability to maintain normal service across several regions.

The technology giant said it had observed positive signs of recovery, including improved service stability and increased capacity. It was also expanding corrective measures across affected regions while monitoring server performance and bringing additional infrastructure back online.

Microsoft has ruled out a cybersecurity breach as the cause of the incident. Company executive Charles Lamanna also indicated that the disruption was not linked to malicious activity. The company said it would disclose the underlying cause in a detailed post-incident report once the problems had been resolved.

The scale of the disruption has been reflected in reports submitted to Downdetector, an online platform that monitors service interruptions. At around 7am GMT, more than 43,000 users had reported problems with Outlook within an hour across 72 countries. Earlier, at approximately 6pm GMT on Thursday, nearly 140,000 users had reported Outlook-related issues, significantly above normal levels.

The actual number of affected users is believed to be considerably higher, as Downdetector records only reports submitted by individuals experiencing problems.

The outage has also affected organisations that depend on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and workplace applications. Technology companies OpenAI and Anthropic have reported disruptions to some of their services as a result of the wider incident.

The impact has extended beyond private businesses, with government agencies and public services in several countries reporting difficulties.

In Japan, the government confirmed disruptions to its shared information technology platform. Australia’s intelligence and federal police agencies also reported problems, although officials indicated that the impact was largely related to email services.

In the United Kingdom, several police forces warned that online reporting forms could be affected. The Metropolitan Police advised people to use telephone services for urgent matters, recommending 101 for non-emergency situations and 999 in emergencies.

Healthcare services have also faced difficulties. Doctors reported problems receiving emails through Microsoft’s systems, raising concerns about communication between medical teams and patients. An NHS general practitioner warned that the disruption could significantly affect primary care and community services, particularly on a busy Friday.

The National Pharmacy Association also reported that the outage was affecting access to NHS email services, making it difficult for pharmacies to communicate with general practitioners and some patients. The association warned that prescription processing could face delays and customers might experience longer waiting times.

However, major UK airports, including Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted, said their main operations remained unaffected. Some administrative and technical processes experienced disruption, but airport representatives said services were generally operating normally.

The incident has also highlighted the risks associated with the growing dependence on a limited number of technology providers. Cybersecurity experts have warned that businesses relying heavily on a single digital platform could face serious operational difficulties when its services experience widespread failures.

Experts have urged organisations to establish alternative communication systems and contingency arrangements to ensure essential operations can continue during major technology disruptions.

The latest outage has renewed concerns about the resilience of global digital infrastructure, particularly as Microsoft 365 applications are used by more than 430 million people worldwide.

Microsoft has said it will continue working to restore affected services and monitor improvements until normal operations are fully resumed.