Microsoft ‘deeply sorry’ as 365 outage hits more than 70 countries

Microsoft said it was “deeply sorry” for a global outage of its Microsoft 365 products, including Outlook and Teams, which disrupted businesses, governments and individual users in more than 70 countries. The company said services were broadly recovering by Friday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after the problems began, but that it had no estimate for when they would be fully restored.

What caused the Microsoft 365 outage?

Microsoft said the fault was a technical issue introduced during a “network capacity upgrade”. The company said it was not related to a cyber attack or to artificial intelligence agents — a distinction that keeps the outage outside the wider argument over AI safety fears, which US President Donald Trump has branded a “hoax”.

Which countries and services were affected?

The disruption reached institutions including the Japanese government, the Supreme Court of the Philippines and the Australian spy agency, as well as trains, hospitals and courts in North America. In the UK, parts of the NHS including GP surgeries and hospitals were affected, along with some schools and police forces. Canada’s national rail network warned that passengers might not receive email updates about their trips, and hospitals across the country reported email problems. Singapore’s government said some of its systems had been affected, and in India the outage disrupted work on Friday. In Turkey, advisers and officials at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya were unable to access Outlook. In the United States, staff members from the House of Representatives told Politico that the outage had set back an entire day of legislative work because everything ran on Outlook; the chamber has also blocked a bid to impeach Pete Hegseth over the Iran war, for now.

How did the outage unfold?

Microsoft first acknowledged at 17:54 GMT on Thursday that users in the Americas could not access Exchange Online mailboxes, and shortly afterwards warned that the disruption might be affecting Microsoft 365 globally. By 04:36 GMT on Friday it was reporting only a “partial recovery” in some parts of the world. By 13:32 GMT it described “broader improvements” in North America, “sustained improvements” across much of Europe and “encouraging recovery signals” in the Asia Pacific region. Microsoft said it restored services gradually because of the scale of the problem and to help keep them stable once running again, and that a full post-incident report would be published after a review.

What has the outage meant for businesses and individuals?

Peter Pentz, a winemaker in South Africa, said his business had been brought to a “standstill”: communication with exporters stopped and “critical production work” halted at the Cape West Coast winery, which he said relies on these systems for parts of its daily operations. In England, Georgia, from Staffordshire, said the purchase of her first house — after an eight-month wait — had been delayed because her solicitor could not contact other agencies.

What does the outage show about reliance on big tech?

Rob Demain, chief executive of the cybersecurity firm e2e-assure, said: “The global Microsoft outage is a stark reminder of how heavily we rely on a handful of big tech providers.” Matt Saunders, field chief technology officer at the technology consultancy Adaptavist, said duplicating services was hard in practice: “Classic IT disaster planning strategies suggest using a second service for resilience, but in practice, it’s almost impossible for a business to function without tools such as Microsoft.”

UK cyber minister Liz Lloyd said the incident had “limited” impact on critical frontline services such as 999 calls, and that there had been no disruption to the transport network.

Frequently asked questions

What caused the Microsoft 365 outage?

Microsoft said the fault was a technical issue introduced during a “network capacity upgrade”. The company said it was not related to a cyber attack or to artificial intelligence agents.

When did the Microsoft outage start and is it fixed?

Microsoft first acknowledged problems with Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas at 17:54 GMT on Thursday. By Friday afternoon it said services were broadly recovering, but it gave no estimate for when they would be fully restored.

Which countries were affected by the Microsoft outage?

The disruption hit more than 70 countries, affecting the Japanese government, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the Australian spy agency, UK NHS services, Canadian rail passengers, Singapore government systems and a climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.

How many people use the affected Microsoft products?

More than 430 million people use the affected products worldwide, according to Microsoft.

With reporting from BBC News.

Stock image, not from the events described. Globe World — Jo%E3o%20Silas / Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)