Microsoft restores Teams, Outlook after over 24-hour global outage, rules out cyberattack

Microsoft has fully restored its Teams and Outlook services after a global outage that lasted over 24 hours, the company announced on Saturday. The disruption caused widespread issues with online communications for businesses, government agencies, and organizations worldwide. Microsoft attributed the outage to server-related problems, ruling out any malicious activity as the cause.

The disruption affected core workplace applications, including Teams, Outlook, and the Copilot AI assistant, disrupting essential operations such as email communication, calendar management, and virtual meetings. Microsoft's outage-tracking platform, Downdetector, registered more than 7.4 million reports worldwide, with peak activity nearing 20,000 reports per minute.

The incident could potentially trigger insurance claims from affected businesses, though the overall impact on insurers is expected to be limited. Early estimates suggest global insured losses could range between $300 million and $500 million, according to Morningstar DBRS. This outage is another example of a major technology provider experiencing a significant disruption, following similar incidents involving other cloud infrastructure providers in recent years.