Microsoft restores services after a global outage hit Outlook and Teams in more than 70 countries
Microsoft said on Friday its services were recovering after a global outage that began on Thursday afternoon, European time, and for hours affected millions of users in more than 70 countries, including public bodies in Australia and Japan. The company ruled out a cyberattack.
Microsoft reported on Friday that its services were resuming normal operation following a global outage on Thursday that impacted Outlook email, Teams, SharePoint Online, Copilot AI, OneDrive, OneNote, and the broader Microsoft 365 suite across more than 70 countries. The disruption did not appear to be a result of a cyberattack, according to the company.
Microsoft's executive vice-president for Copilot, Agents and Platforms, Charles Lamanna, confirmed there was no malicious activity causing the outage. The company stated that several servers unexpectedly became unavailable, leading to a cascading effect that overwhelmed linked systems. They continue to see progress in recovery but acknowledged some users may still encounter intermittent issues.
In Australia, the outage affected key public bodies including the tax office, courts, Federal Police, ASIO intelligence agency, and New South Wales state services platform, prompting Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to activate a digital resilience agreement clause. In Japan, government services were also disrupted, though health facilities were unaffected.
Complaints on the Downdetector platform peaked in the afternoon of Thursday and resurfaced on Friday morning before normalizing later in the day. Microsoft 365 serves over 450 million corporate users and 95 million consumers, while Teams has more than 320 million users.
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