Photo credit, AFP via Getty Images
An outage at Microsoft continues to affect several services, including Teams, Outlook and AI software Copilot.
The outage began on Thursday; According to the monitoring site Downdetector, problems have been reported in more than 70 countries.
Microsoft says its attempts to resolve the issue are “not going as planned,” specifying that it is not due to a cybersecurity breach.
More than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps, and tech giants OpenAI and Anthropic have reported issues related to the outage.
End of content
Microsoft says it 'continues to work' on recovery
In its latest statement, Microsoft indicated that it continued to work to resolve this outage.
“We continue to work on returning our front-end servers to service while implementing new traffic optimization measures to improve service stability and increase capacity,” she said in a post on X.
Nearly two hours ago, the company indicated that it was seeing a “partial recovery” in all regions, but that its measures did not “ensure a sustainable recovery”.
Microsoft says it is "seeing positive results" in terms of service stability and increased capacity as it continues its efforts to remedy the outage.
End of Most read
Microsoft specifies that it is “now implementing these measures on a larger scale in affected regions”.
It adds that it will continue to monitor developments and extend these measures to servers supporting "active regions that are coming back online."
Earlier, we learned that the issue was caused by some servers being overloaded following the failure of other servers.
Photo credit, Getty Images
Several services affected around the world
Verified information at your fingertips
Click here and subscribe!
End of WhatsApp Promotion
“Here in Beijing we are also affected by the outage of Microsoft Outlook and Teams,” says BBC Beijing correspondent Laura Bicker.
It's all the more frustrating since access to many Western Internet services is already restricted, she continues.
Most Chinese companies use software developed in China – WPS Office is one of the most popular.
But Outlook is one of the few reliable channels for many offices and businesses around the country that work with colleagues around the world.
China operates one of the world's most sophisticated internet censorship systems, known as the "Great Electronic Wall", which restricts access to many Western websites, including Google, Facebook and Instagram, as well as many international news outlets, including the BBC. Coming up against technological hazards is therefore nothing new for most of us who live here.
But some Internet users on Chinese social networks who use Outlook see the bright side of this disruption.
“Thanks to Microsoft we can start our weekend earlier,” one wrote.
Photo credit, VCG via Getty Images
Australia's intelligence services and federal police were also affected by the outage, although officials said its impact was minimal.
“The impact they're facing is primarily on the email system,” Mike Burgess, director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), told reporters.
Other Australian utility providers have also confirmed they have been affected by the outage, but also say it is mainly limited to emails. According to BBC reporting, key services in New South Wales (NSW) in health, education, transport and emergency services have not suffered a major impact.
A NSW Government spokesperson told me that agencies were working to restore affected services and that "workarounds" were being put in place at physical service centers - some of which were reported to have been closed earlier today due to the outage.
The problems encountered by Microsoft are also disrupting the functioning of justice systems around the world.
The Philippine Supreme Court warned that “responses to emails and other representations may be delayed.” »
The Singapore Courts also say they are "experiencing issues with incoming and outgoing emails", and invite the public to contact them by telephone with urgent questions.
Courts across North America, from Los Angeles to Texas to Alberta, have also issued their own statements warning that communications could be delayed.
How does this compare to previous technological disruptions?
In 2024, a faulty software update released by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused thousands of Microsoft Windows devices around the world to crash in one of the largest IT disruptions in history.
The computer glitch grounded thousands of flights, knocked out emergency services and disrupted some banking operations as computers crashed.
Microsoft then estimated that 8.5 million computers around the world had been knocked out of service by this outage, and that it had taken several days for the companies concerned to remedy the situation.
Discover more
Look!
End of Look!
