Microsoft struggling to restore service as global outage affects Outlook and Teams

On November 13, a Microsoft service disruption impacted several Singapore government systems, including email services, according to the Government Technology Agency (GovTech). The agency is collaborating with Microsoft to restore the affected services as quickly as possible. Emergency services, including 995 and 999, remain fully operational and are reachable as usual.

SingPass, the government's online authentication system, was not affected, and public officers could continue using Microsoft Teams for internal communications.

For updates on e-services, the public was advised to check the respective agency's official website or social media channels. The email disruption may cause delays in responding to inquiries, so urgent matters should be contacted through other channels such as the agency's call centre.

Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, and other apps were disrupted globally, with Singapore users reporting issues on outage tracker Downdetector on the morning of Nov 13. Microsoft's Service Health Status webpage confirmed they were reviewing traffic flows and affected infrastructure to identify ways to optimize routing. The company reiterated that there was no indication of malicious activity behind the outage.