{
  "id": 19893535,
  "title": "Microsoft outage: company scrambles to fix global issue that took down Outlook and Teams",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsoft-outage-company-scrambles-to-fix-global-issue-that-took-down",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-11-13T17:41:15.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Business",
    "slug": "guardian-business",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/13/microsoft-outage-outlook-teams-word-excel-reports"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Microsoft experienced a widespread outage on Thursday, disrupting services for millions of users, organizations, and businesses globally. The company issued an apology, stating it was \"deeply sorry\" for the disruption and had addressed the underlying issue. The outage affected multiple services, including Outlook and Teams, impacting users in the UK, US, Australia, Japan, and India. Government agencies, schools, hospitals, and financial institutions were among those affected. Microsoft took approximately 18 hours to restore services gradually, beginning midday GMT on Friday. The company attributed the outage to a technical issue, not related to cyber-attacks or AI agents, and suggested the problem may have been due to misconfigurations in the network layer.",
  "summary": "Tech firm says it is ‘deeply sorry’ for disruption that took services down and has now addressed the underlying issue What caused the outage and when will it be fixed? Microsoft outage hits UK hospitals, GPs, schools and police Tell us: have you been affected by the outage? Microsoft has said it is “deeply sorry” for a widespread outage that caused disruption to millions of users, organisations…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 8,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Arabian Business",
        "title": "Microsoft outage reinforces the need for resilience in critical systems",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsoft-outage-reinforces-the-need-for-resilience-in-critical",
        "published": "2026-11-13T12:04:40.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "The Economic Times",
        "title": "Microsoft outage: Is Outlook fixed? US cities hit",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsoft-outage-is-outlook-fixed-us-cities-hit",
        "published": "2026-11-13T12:08:18.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Quartz",
        "title": "5 areas affected by the Microsoft 365 outage, from email to share price",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/5-areas-affected-by-the-microsoft-365-outage-from-email-to-share-price",
        "published": "2026-11-13T14:41:08.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "TechCabal",
        "title": "Microsoft’s 18-hour outage exposed South Africa’s dependence on Big Tech",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsofts-18-hour-outage-exposed-south-africas-dependence-on-big-tech",
        "published": "2026-11-13T17:41:02.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Axios",
        "title": "How the Microsoft outage impacted courts and governments",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/how-the-microsoft-outage-impacted-courts-and-governments",
        "published": "2026-11-13T19:59:55.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "CIO Dive",
        "title": "Microsoft 365 outage underscores enterprise resiliency issues",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsoft-365-outage-underscores-enterprise-resiliency-issues",
        "published": "2026-11-13T21:19:35.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "RNZ Business",
        "title": "Businesses suffering a loss from Microsoft outage could have grounds for insurance claim, lawyer says",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/businesses-suffering-a-loss-from-microsoft-outage-could-have-grounds",
        "published": "2026-11-14T00:24:43.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}