Microsoft's cloud and service systems have been disrupted worldwide for over 12 hours, extending into Asia-Pacific business hours. The widespread impact spans government agencies, courts, financial businesses, and airlines. Microsoft reports only slight progress in fixes, confirms no cyberattacks detected, and plans to disclose the true cause after full system recovery.
Microsoft, the US tech giant, has faced global service disruptions for over 12 hours following an email system issue, affecting millions worldwide who cannot access Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and other key work services normally.
Microsoft states that over 430 million people use Microsoft 365 applications globally, with more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies using its AI chatbot Copilot. This incident quickly impacted organizations and businesses in multiple countries.
Downdetector, tracking online service issues, reported outages in 74 countries and territories within about one hour. At peak disruption, over 130,000 US users reported Outlook problems around 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday.
As of 11:30 p.m. Thursday Eastern Time (04:30 a.m. Friday UTC), Downdetector still recorded over 18,000 Outlook problem reports in the US. Several Microsoft services in the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Australia, and Japan, continued experiencing issues Friday morning local time.
In a Friday morning US update, Microsoft said it had partially resolved the issue and is monitoring server status regionally to assess performance and implement capacity improvements.
The company explained its fix process involves checking server performance, confirming proper patch installation and functioning, after infrastructure systems have been restarted.
About 30 minutes later, Microsoft reported that recent traffic flow improvements enhanced service stability and capacity. However, server adjustments so far have not fully restored consistent system operation, though some regions are beginning partial recovery.
Microsoft said the problem originated from unexpected failures in some servers, causing increased load on the remaining infrastructure. Microsoft 365 services relying on Exchange Online and email were affected, while some functions not dependent on Exchange Online remained operational.
Exchange Online is Microsoft's cloud messaging platform providing email, calendar, contacts, and task management services.
The company emphasized no evidence of malicious activity or cyberattack caused the outage and will continue fixing issues until full service restoration. It also promised to publish a detailed report on the root cause and preventive measures after resolution.
The outage affected government agencies and businesses across regions. In the US, many local governments reported email issues and advised citizens to use phone contact if necessary. The US House of Representatives confirmed user impact and said engineers are coordinating with Microsoft to resolve the problem.
In the Asia-Pacific, some Japanese government agencies switched to paper documents instead of digital systems. Courts in the Philippines experienced delays, and schools, courts, and government offices in Australia were also impacted.
Masanao Osaki, Japan's Deputy Cabinet Secretary, told reporters the issue affected Japan's government IT infrastructure.
In Australia, federal intelligence and police agencies were among those affected. Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs and Cybersecurity, stated Microsoft believes the incident was not a cyberattack but resembled a system update failure similar to a 2024 incident at CrowdStrike. Burke noted the main impact was on email systems, causing disruptions to government and business operations.
The 2024 CrowdStrike incident was one of the largest internet outages, affecting hospital, banking, and airport technology systems globally, highlighting the fragility of interconnected tech infrastructures.
Several airlines reported disruptions to customer support email systems and communication channels due to Microsoft's issues.
India's IndiGo airline stated its customer support email services were affected, potentially preventing normal email receipt, and advised customers to use the airline's website or app for contact.
India's Akasa Air reported delays in customer support emails, while South Africa's CemAir disclosed partial system problems from the global Microsoft outage.
Air India said it is monitoring the situation closely, has rerouted email handling to mitigate issues, and confirmed flight operations were unaffected.
All reporting airlines confirmed no flights were impacted by the outage.
Major US AI developers OpenAI and Anthropic also reported connectivity problems with Microsoft services. Meanwhile, securities firms, life insurers, and fund managers in Taiwan faced disruptions in fund management systems, with one company canceling a scheduled bond buyback transaction.
US electric truck maker Workhorse Group postponed its Q3 earnings report from 12 November to 16 November, citing business disruption caused by the Microsoft outage.
Several banks warned customers to beware of scams and phishing attempts, as cybercriminals might exploit the outage to defraud individuals and businesses.
Market analysts at trading platform eToro said investors might overlook this outage short-term since many business clients cannot immediately switch from Microsoft's ecosystem.
However, they warned repeated outages could cause companies and IT departments to question the reliability of Microsoft's services, especially if such issues become frequent.
Microsoft previously experienced Microsoft 365 outages in January and October last year, plus an Azure cloud platform disruption in October, affecting office software and various global industries.
Analysts caution Microsoft must prove its ability to maintain system stability before encouraging customers to increase investment in AI Copilot services.
Microsoft confirmed it will fully address the issues until all services resume normal operation and said it will release a detailed report on the incident's causes, corrective actions, and prevention strategies once resolved.