Microsoft restores services following global outage

Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, Copilot 365, Azure, OneNote, OneDrive and Microsoft ToDo, are gradually returning to operation after a widespread outage began on Thursday afternoon. The disruption affected businesses and organisations globally, with the company working through the night to address the issue.

By 2:45AM on Friday, Microsoft reported positive results regarding service stability following traffic optimisation efforts. Further progress was noted by 8:30AM, with improvements in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. By 10:39AM, the company confirmed that service availability and email delivery performance were continuing to improve.

The outage impacted various sectors, including government bodies, the House of Representatives, court systems, schools and emergency services. The National Pharmacy Association in the UK warned of potential prescription delays, while some businesses in Japan resorted to using fax machines. Microsoft stated that it has found no evidence of a malicious cyberattack and attributed the disruption to servers being overloaded and communication issues between machines.

In an official update, Microsoft stated: "We know our customers rely on our services to get important work done every day, and regret the impact these outages had on those who depend on us." The company intends to publish a post-incident report detailing the root cause once the situation is fully resolved. Some employees in Australia and the UK took the opportunity to leave work early, though one individual told the Japan Times: "I thought it was heaven because I wasn't getting any emails at all, but this is just a Microsoft outage, so I'm actually just waiting in line at the gates of hell."