Microsoft outage to have 'cascading impact' on businesses
The continuing outage of Microsoft’s collaboration tools will have a “cascading” effect on businesses, with the financial impact increasing the longer it stretches, experts say. Microsoft 365 tools Exchange Online and Outlook were affected, with Teams, SharePoint Online, Copilot also likely to be affected by the interruption that began on Thursday. The company is still working on fixing it. It…
Microsoft's ongoing outage of collaboration tools, including Exchange Online, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint Online, and Copilot, is causing a "cascading" effect on businesses, said Saurabh Verma, vice president of ICT growth advisory at Frost & Sullivan. The financial impact of the interruption, which began on Thursday and has affected millions of organizations across 74 countries, is expected to increase the longer it persists.
Morey Haber, chief security adviser at BeyondTrust, warns that lost productivity, interrupted transactions, missed revenue, and recovery expenses could quickly accumulate into millions of dollars for affected organizations. While Microsoft may offer service credits under applicable Service Level Agreements, these typically represent only a fraction of actual business losses.
The outage also highlights the operational fragility of single-vendor cloud concentration, exposing vulnerabilities in global businesses and financial markets. Vijay Valecha, chief investment officer at Century Financial, notes that Richemont, a Swiss luxury group, was forced to delay its results, and payment clearing was disrupted across banking institutions.
To mitigate the risks associated with such disruptions, finance companies should utilize out-of-band communication channels, such as independent messaging platforms, dedicated voice lines, and secondary SMS modes.
Written by urgent.news from The National Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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