Microsoft says broad recovery achieved after global outage

Explainer

Microsoft says it has made a broad recovery after a global outage that began on Thursday, but the tech giant cannot offer a timeline for when systems will be fully restored. The company said customers were seeing improved sign-in and access as of Friday afternoon. The outage affected a wide range of Microsoft 365 offerings, including Outlook, Teams and the AI assistant Copilot. Microsoft said the incident was a technical issue and not related to a cyberattack or rogue AI agents.

The company said it was deeply sorry for the disruption. "We know the trust you place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously," Microsoft said in a statement. The outage was caused by an issue introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent network change, according to the company. Microsoft said it had addressed the underlying issue and was gradually restoring services to ensure stability.

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What caused the Microsoft outage?

Microsoft attributed the widespread disruption to a technical problem, not malicious activity. The company said it saw no evidence of a cyberattack. The outage was not due to an increase in traffic, Microsoft explained, but by a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable, which strained the remaining infrastructure. The problem stemmed from an issue introduced during a previous network capacity upgrade, which surfaced following a later network change. Microsoft said it has since addressed that underlying technical fault.

Reports of connectivity issues began spiking shortly after noon Eastern time on Thursday. The outage affected Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories, according to Downdetector. Services in the Americas, parts of Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa were disrupted. Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based subscription service that includes applications such as Outlook and Teams. The company said in January it had more than 450 million paid Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions.

Which services and organizations were affected?

The impact of the Microsoft outage was widespread, with governments, businesses and public services across the world reporting problems. The federal government of Canada was affected, AI Minister Evan Solomon confirmed. "The Government of Canada experienced impacts from the Microsoft service outage," Solomon said in a statement Friday. Several Canadian hospitals also reported their networks being hit.

The Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal said Friday that while all its Microsoft 365 suite services had been restored, there may be an additional delay in processing some appointment requests. Montreal's Jewish General Hospital said Thursday there may be delays in some services and emails sent during the outage may not be delivered. Unity Health in Toronto said its email services were gradually returning to normal. VIA Rail Canada said its rail operations were unaffected, but passengers may not be able to receive email communications about their trips.

Internationally, British police forces said they were unable to receive crime reports online and urged people to call emergency responders. The National Pharmacy Association in the United Kingdom said people could face delays getting prescriptions because the outage affected the email systems of the state-run National Health Service. In Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft had likened the disruption to the 2024 CrowdStrike outage. Air India and IndiGo airlines reported disruptions to email support services. The Philippines' Supreme Court said the outage affected some of its operations, including email responses.

How is Microsoft restoring service?

Microsoft's strategy for stabilizing its system involved prioritizing the reduction of backlogs of delayed emails. The company said it was draining queued messages and rebalancing traffic as infrastructure stabilized. "Given the scale of demand, we restored services gradually, validating stability at each stage," Microsoft said. "While this took longer, it helped ensure a stable restoration." The company said it would provide a full post-incident report once its review is complete.

In an update at 3 p.m. Eastern on Friday, Microsoft said customers were seeing improved sign-in and access. "As infrastructure stabilizes, we're still draining queued messages and rebalancing traffic, so customers may see improved sign-in/access while delivery and processing continue to catch up," the company said. Microsoft added that it did not have an estimated time for full recovery. The company's Service Health Status page still indicated some services may be unavailable.

What has been the broader reaction to the outage?

The global disruption has prompted calls for reviews of reliance on major technology providers. The Australian Computer Society called for a national review of sovereign IT risk. Its chief executive, Prins Ralston, said small businesses may not have a workaround when Outlook fails. In Japan, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said the outage impacted the government's IT infrastructure and that officials were keeping a close eye on developments. Japanese authorities had secured alternative communication tools such as telephones.

Japan's economy, trade and industry minister, Ryosei Akazawa, warned of a significant impact because Microsoft products are used by a vast number of people. The GMB union in the United Kingdom said the disruption had a serious impact on the National Health Service, with staff receiving emergency calls unable to refer patient details normally, creating a backlog. Immigration New Zealand halted processing of all visa applications due to the outage. Microsoft said it was deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused customers and partners.

With files from Global News, Yahoo News and Oz Arab Media