Microsoft Confirms Outlook And Other Services Back After 24-Hour Global Outage

Microsoft has confirmed that its services have been fully restored after a global outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 products, affecting users in more than 70 countries.

The company told BBC work to resolve the underlying issue was completed early on Saturday, with customers no longer expected to experience problems.

Microsoft apologised for the disruption, explaining that the outage was caused by a network capacity upgrade and not by a cyber attack or an artificial intelligence system.

The outage began on Thursday and continued for almost 24 hours, disrupting businesses, governments and individual users worldwide. More than 430 million people use the affected Microsoft services.

The disruption affected organisations including the Japanese government, the Philippines Supreme Court, hospitals, courts and rail services in North America, while parts of the UK's NHS, schools and police forces also experienced problems.

Singapore and India reported disruptions to government and workplace systems, while officials attending the COP31 climate summit in Turkey were also affected.

The incident also impacted smaller businesses and individuals, with users reporting delayed property purchases, interrupted communications and halted business operations due to their reliance on Microsoft services.

Microsoft said it restored services gradually to ensure systems remained stable, adding that it would publish a full report after reviewing the incident.

Experts said the outage highlighted the world's dependence on a small number of major technology providers.

Rob Demain, chief executive of cybersecurity firm e2e-assure, described it as "a stark reminder" of how heavily organisations rely on big tech companies, while Adaptavist's Matt Saunders said businesses should have contingency plans in place for operating without essential cloud services when major incidents occur.

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