Global Microsoft outage causes disruption for organisations around the world

Businesses and organisations around the world have experienced major disruption to systems following an outage affecting Microsoft services.

The outage began on Thursday 12th November, and has affected Microsoft 365 customers, impacting emails and Teams software, OneDrive cloud storage and Copilot AI tools. Other Microsoft products, including its Bing search engine, and LinkedIn social network have been unaffected.

Given Microsoft’s significant role in IT infrastructure around the world, the outage has affected businesses and public sector organisations worldwide. In the UK, NHS services, schools, emergency services and local authorities including Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and GMCA, as well as a significant proportion of businesses that rely on Microsoft platforms for digital communications. Many affected organisations have advised that telephone calls are the best means of communication during the outage.

The full scale of the impact of the outage has yet to be revealed, however, the Microsoft services impacted have over 430 million customers worldwide, and self-reporting through the Down Detector website has revealed the outage to have reached over 70 countries.

Microsoft have attributed the outage to an overloading of a small number of its servers on Thursday 12th November, and has largely ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack or other deliberate targeting of the company’s services as the cause of the problems.

As of shortly after midday on Friday 13th November, more than 16 hours after the outage began, Microsoft confirmed that work by its engineers had stabilised the cause of the outage, and that the firm was beginning to see some recovery for service availability, and email delivery for customers in Europe.