Microsoft Global Outage Enters Second Day, Disrupting Businesses and Government Services

A global outage affecting Microsoft's services has entered its second day, disrupting communications for businesses, government agencies and millions of users across several countries.

The disruption, which lasted more than 12 hours, affected Microsoft Outlook, Teams and its Copilot artificial intelligence assistant, leaving organisations unable to perform essential tasks such as sending emails, managing calendars and hosting virtual meetings.

Microsoft attributed the incident to server problems and said it was gradually deploying software fixes to stabilise affected systems. The company also stated that it was not aware of any malicious activity linked to the outage.

In an update on Friday, Microsoft reported broader improvements across North America and much of Europe but did not provide a timeline for the full restoration of affected services.

Server Problems Behind Disruption

The technology company said it was investigating different approaches to identify the cause of the disruption and restore its affected servers.

Microsoft said it was taking a measured approach to repairing the infrastructure, while a wider rollout of software fixes was beginning to improve service availability.

The outage specifically affected features connected to Exchange Online, Microsoft's cloud-based email and scheduling platform. Organisations hosting Microsoft services on their own servers, rather than relying on its cloud infrastructure, experienced fewer disruptions.

Microsoft says more than 430 million people use its Microsoft 365 applications, highlighting the scale of the disruption across workplaces and public services.

Businesses and Government Agencies Affected

The outage disrupted government agencies and businesses in countries including Australia, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.

In Europe, exchange operator Euronext instructed listed companies to use telephone communication as an alternative. Insurance company Aviva also activated backup arrangements, including alternative phone numbers for earnings calls and Bluetooth transfers for recordings.

In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service and Metropolitan Police were among the organisations affected. The police service said its ability to respond to emergency calls remained operational, although the disruption affected the online reporting of some crimes.

Some NHS services turned to alternative information technology systems and paper records to maintain operations.

In Australia, the country's federal police and intelligence agency were also affected. Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft did not suspect a cyberattack.

Several Indian airlines, including IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India, also reported disruptions to their email support services.

Canadian Services Experience Disruptions

In Canada, the outage affected several organisations and public services. Unity Health Toronto reported difficulties sending and receiving emails but said patient and resident care remained unaffected.

Montreal's CHUM hospital also experienced disruptions to appointment requests and some internal activities.

Via Rail warned that some customers might not receive emails about their journeys, advising passengers to use its train tracker or register for text notifications.

Federal, provincial and municipal government departments also reported email-related difficulties.

Potential Financial Losses and Growing Concerns

The disruption has raised concerns about the financial consequences of relying heavily on a small number of technology providers for essential business and public services.

Mario De Cicco, vice-president of European financial institutions at Morningstar DBRS, estimated that global insured losses from the incident could range between $300 million and $500 million.

The estimate is lower than the financial impact of the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, which was assessed at between $400 million and $1.5 billion after more than eight million Windows-based computers were affected.

Analysts have also questioned whether repeated service disruptions could encourage organisations to reconsider their dependence on Microsoft's platforms.

Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at trading platform eToro, said recurring reliability problems could prompt information technology departments to reconsider placing even more of their operations under one provider.

Microsoft also experienced disruptions involving its 365 services earlier in the year, as well as an Azure cloud outage in the previous month that affected productivity applications and several industries.

The latest incident has renewed questions about the resilience of cloud-based infrastructure and the risks businesses face when essential communications and operations depend on a single technology provider.

Reuters