Microsoft Experiences Global Outage: Email and AI Services Affected
A major global Microsoft outage has caused problems, or in some cases disabled entire services, including emails and artificial intelligence products.
A significant global outage at Microsoft on Thursday caused widespread issues, affecting various services including email and artificial intelligence products. Microsoft stated that the disruption was not due to a cybersecurity incident, and efforts to resolve the problems have so far been largely unsuccessful.
According to the monitoring website Downdetector, reports of issues with the email provider Outlook peaked globally at nearly 140,000 around 18:00 GMT on Thursday.
Highlights
- Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, Outlook, and AI software like Copilot, experienced "connectivity problems."
- Users reported being unable to send or receive emails, or access certain files and calendar details.
- Microsoft ruled out a cyber-attack, attributing the outage to "elevated load" on its infrastructure, causing servers to become unexpectedly unavailable.
- By Friday morning, Microsoft reported "marginal success" in its efforts to address the incident.
- Tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, along with government agencies such as Singapore's government and Australia's spy agency, also reported being affected.
Details
Microsoft 365 services, particularly Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft's AI software Copilot, were among the primary applications impacted by the outage. While customers reported varying levels of access issues, many were unable to send or receive emails or view information in their calendar apps. Downdetector indicated that 140,000 people from 74 countries reported issues with Outlook on Thursday evening.
Microsoft stated that the outage was not caused by a cyber-security incident. Instead, it attributed the ongoing disruption to "elevated load" on its infrastructure. This term refers to situations where servers handle a much higher volume of stress than usual. The company explained that a large number of servers became "unexpectedly unavailable," which then directed added traffic to the remaining servers, straining them.
On Friday morning, Microsoft announced that it had observed "marginal success" in its efforts to address the incident. The company continues to monitor activity across regions to evaluate server status and determine further actions to improve capacity.
Why it matters
This Microsoft outage is significant due to the company's role as a global technology giant serving millions of users. The disruption of email and business applications can negatively impact the daily operations of companies and individuals worldwide. Cybersecurity experts highlight that such outages underscore the critical nature of internet infrastructure and the fundamental role email still plays in communication. For businesses, this could mean a loss of a business day, leading to considerable frustration among users.