Microsoft Services Restored Worldwide After Widespread Global Outage

After more than a day of widespread disruption, Microsoft says its core workplace tools are back online, drawing a line under a global outage that upended email, calendars and virtual meetings for businesses and governments.

“We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions,” the company posted on X.

Microsoft previously said server problems were responsible for the incident, which also reached its Copilot AI assistant. The company said it was not aware of any malicious activity and ruled out AI as the cause.

Outlook and Teams rank among the world’s most heavily used workplace applications, serving hundreds of millions of users.

Error messages on pages for Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Copilot on a laptop

At the height of the outage, users were unable to carry out basic tasks such as sending emails, organising diaries and running virtual meetings.

Problems were reported in Ireland and the UK from about 6pm on Thursday evening.

The HSE said Healthmail was affected, with implications for prescriptions. GPs and pharmacists were advised to use paper prescriptions under the GMS scheme.

It said there were also intermittent issues with Microsoft video conferencing tools, but added that no services had been impacted so far.

Public statements showed the outage also rippled through government agencies from Australia and Japan to the United States, slowed operations at trading firms, held up some companies’ earnings publications, and led airlines to warn customers about communication delays.

Some organisations that run Microsoft services on their own servers rather than relying on the cloud were less affected.

Another outage for Microsoft

The disruption stands as one of the longest outages in Microsoft’s history and marked the second service interruption for the company this year. Microsoft said the incident mainly struck features linked to Exchange Online — its cloud-based email and scheduling hub — while applications not connected to those services continued to function.

The episode has renewed scrutiny over how much the global economy depends on a small number of Big Tech firms that provide both essential software and the cloud infrastructure behind it.

Microsoft also faced an outage with its 365 services in January this year and in October last year

It also underscored just how entrenched Microsoft’s workplace suite has become, with outage reports surging as employees began their workdays across Asia and Europe, according to Downdetector’s parent company, Ookla.

Downdetector recorded more than 7.4 million reports worldwide, topping out at nearly 20,000 a minute — more than 1,500 times typical levels.

“It shows how much of the working day now runs through one provider’s email and collaboration tools,” said Luke Kehoe, lead industry analyst at Ookla.

Microsoft shares finished flat at $523.88 yesterday, and the stock is up about 8% so far this year.

While the disruption and any resulting financial damage could generate many insurance claims, the broader impact on insurers is expected to be limited, said Mario De Cicco, vice president of European financial institutions at ‌MorningstarDBRS.

Mr De Cicco put global insured losses from the incident at $300 million to $500m — far below the $400m to $1.5 billion cost tied to the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, which crashed more than 8 million Windows-based computers and triggered widespread disruption.

Microsoft also faced an outage with its 365 services in January this year and in October last year.

Last month, the company said its Azure cloud platform suffered an outage that hit its productivity suite and affected industries worldwide.

“The bigger worry is that this is not the first Microsoft365 outage this year,” said Josh Gilbert, a market ‌analyst at trading platform eToro.

Read more:

Microsoft outage: What went wrong and what was the impact?

“If reliability starts to look like a recurring problem, it hands every IT department a reason to think twice before putting even more of their ⁠business in one provider’s hands.”

Even so, some analysts have questioned whether outages like this are enough to drive customers to competitors, given the high cost and complexity of replacing tools that are deeply woven into day-to-day operations.

Trades needed to be confirmed by fax

A spokesperson for the UK government said it was working with Microsoft to find a fix for the outage, which affected organisations including the NHS and London’s Metropolitan Police.

Without access to email and other services, the Metropolitan Police said its ability to report some crimes online was affected, though its response to calls was not.

The NHS said its ‌local services were relying on alternative measures, including other IT systems or paper records.

For companies, the knock-on effects were broad.

European exchange operator Euronext said it experienced email disruption, British insurer Aviva switched to backup arrangements for its earnings calls, and Danish shipping group Maersk warned customers about delayed updates.

US AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic also reported problems with Microsoft connectors, which were later fixed, while Indian airlines IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India said their email support services were affected.

The outage also interfered with fund management at Taiwanese securities firms, life insurers and investment trust companies.

One company went as far as cancelling a bond repurchase transaction, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Another Taiwanese financial firm turned to fax to confirm trades, a second source said.