Hourslong Microsoft outage disrupts Korean companies' daily operations

A prolonged outage of Microsoft services caused disruptions to the daily operations of major Korean companies on Friday, forcing employees to grapple with difficulties in accessing emails, collaborating with business partners, and managing routine tasks as the technology behemoth battled to reestablish its affected systems. The impact permeated various Microsoft offerings, including Outlook email, sectors of the Teams messaging platform, 365 productivity utilities, and the Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

The severity of the disruption differed among organizations, contingent on the specific services they employed, prompting certain personnel to delay work or resort to alternative communication avenues. Certain prominent entities dispatched urgent company-wide notifications, informing employees of the outage and urging them to ascertain which Microsoft services were incapacitated.

Some corporations also disseminated email advisories, outlining the unavailability of specific services. An official from the IT sector disclosed that employees had resorted to alternative messaging applications to maintain a semblance of productivity, yet this workaround proved to be only partially effective. "Since we are unable to utilize email, we are transferring files via messaging apps. However, certain files cannot be transmitted through this route.