{
  "id": 19979778,
  "title": "Microsoft says services fully restored after global outage hits governments",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/microsoft-says-services-fully-restored-after-global-outage-hits",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-11-14T11:54:31.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Technology",
    "slug": "guardian-technology",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/14/microsoft-says-services-fully-restored-after-global-outage"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Microsoft has declared its services fully restored globally after a major outage that severely impacted governments, businesses, and public services worldwide. The technology company stated it had completed efforts to address the root cause of the incident and brought service back to all impacted customers and regions. The outage, which began on Thursday, disrupted a wide array of operations, affecting governments in countries like Japan, Singapore, and Australia, as well as healthcare services, businesses, airlines, and banks. Hospitals in the UK resorted to paper records, ambulance services faced significant disruptions, and the court system experienced delays with juries sent home early or prisoners not being sent to court. In the US, school districts directed parents to contact schools via phone or online apps, while House of Representatives staffers lost a day of work due to the outage. In Australia, many reliant on Microsoft 365 services, including councils, courts, and schools, could not access their inboxes, and the federal police and Asio were also affected. Across Europe, government agencies in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France reported issues, with French municipalities instructing citizens to use the phone instead of emailing. In Japan, government email services went down, and staff resorted to text messaging. Shipping firm Sagawa Express could not accept online reservations, and Taisho, a major pharmaceutical company, had to handle orders by phone. Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air experienced disruptions to their email support services, and Taiwanese security firms, life insurers, and investment trust companies reported fund management service disruptions. Downdetector reported outage complaints from over 70 countries and territories, with approximately 430 million people using Microsoft 365 apps. Microsoft apologized for the disruptions, attributing the outage to an issue during a previous network capacity upgrade following a recent network change. The company emphasized that the incident was not related to cyberattacks or artificial intelligence agents. Experts noted that the widespread outage highlighted the risks of overreliance on a few tech providers and the need for greater resilience in IT ecosystems.",
  "summary": "Tech company says operations restored to all customers and regions affected by one of worst IT failures in years Microsoft has said its service has been fully restored after a massive outage that saw widespread disruption to governments, businesses and public services around the world. The technology company said on Saturday morning it had restored service to the remaining customers affected by…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 5,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Engadget",
        "title": "Microsoft services are returning after an outage took down Outlook, Teams and more",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/microsoft-services-are-returning-after-an-outage-took-down-outlook",
        "published": "2026-11-13T16:35:36.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Bangkok Post Business",
        "title": "Outlook outage sounds cloud alarm",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/13/outlook-outage-sounds-cloud-alarm",
        "published": "2026-11-13T21:21:00.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "SiliconANGLE",
        "title": "Massive Microsoft outage disrupts businesses, government agencies worldwide",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/massive-microsoft-outage-disrupts-businesses-government-agencies",
        "published": "2026-11-14T00:00:08.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Nairametrics",
        "title": "Microsoft restores Teams, Outlook after over 24-hour global outage, rules out cyberattack",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/microsoft-restores-teams-outlook-after-over-24-hour-global-outage",
        "published": "2026-11-14T11:06:11.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "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."
}