Failed health check, elevated load, server restart: What led to the Microsoft outage

A prolonged Microsoft 365 outage has impacted government agencies and businesses across Australia, Japan, and the United States. The disruption, affecting services like Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, extended into Asia-Pacific business hours on Friday as the tech giant battled server issues. Microsoft acknowledged applying adjustments to affected servers, but these changes did not lead to a complete recovery. Partial recovery was observed in the regions where these adjustments were implemented.

The outage, which began earlier in the week, has raised concerns about Microsoft's reliability, as it marks the second disruption to the company's 365 services this year. Downdetector, which tracks outages, recorded over 18,000 reports of Outlook problems in the US at 11:30 p.m. ET (0430 GMT) and multiple service outages in the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Australia, and Japan.

Microsoft's service health notice indicated that features depending on Exchange Online and email were affected while elements not reliant on Exchange Online remained functional. The company stated it is not aware of any malicious activity causing the outage and that Exchange Online is Microsoft's cloud-based messaging platform delivering email, calendar, contacts, and tasks.

Australian Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke confirmed that Microsoft believed the issue was not a result of a cyberattack. Burke noted that the impact was primarily on email systems, similar to a situation involving the cyber security company CrowdStrike, where an update had gone awry. Microsoft is actively reviewing additional actions to improve overall infrastructure stability.