A major UK supermarket's online systems have been hit by the global Microsoft outage as issues with Outlook, Teams and Copilot continue to cause disruption. Asda has warned that some online operations cannot be performed, such as new customer registrations and password resets.
Asda wrote on its website: "Due to an ongoing Global Microsoft Service Disruption new customers are unable to complete the registration process. Customers are also unable to perform password reset or email change operations." Asda's stores throughout the UK remain fully open and operational.
Global impact and response
Microsoft users worldwide are still struggling to access Teams, Outlook and Copilot as the technology company battles to resolve the outage. Microsoft said this morning that it "appreciated the patience" of those impacted. It has been suffering the outage for several hours. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Teams, also reported issues.
In an earlier update, Microsoft said that although it had managed to get servers operating multiple times overnight UK time, those servers had crashed. The update read: "We're seeing positive results for service stability and increased capacity as a result of our latest traffic optimisation actions. We're implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions as we seek to attain persistent recovery."
Key events and updates
The National Cyber Security Centre has issued a scam warning, recommending that everyone exercises caution around unexpected calls and messages, especially those containing links. The outage is also affecting 111 and 999 services, with GMB Union claiming it is stopping them from referring patient details as they usually would, causing a "massive backlog". NHS staff are turning to paper records as part of "long-standing measures" to overcome IT issues.
Jurors in a trial at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court were sent home early after being told the outage had caused "all sorts of delays". Judge Maurice Greene told them: "What we are learning is the dangers of our reliance on computer systems and platforms, and so on. Many institutions rely on Microsoft 365, as do the court and various institutions connected to the court, so there have all been sort of delays because of this. I would say sorry, but it's not my fault. It may be Mr Gates's fault, but I don't think he is going to come and apologise."
The London Ambulance Service said "there has been no impact on our patients and operational services" despite the outage. Microsoft said services are being "gradually restored" after the major global outage that affected police forces, the NHS, businesses and schools.
Wider impact and recovery efforts
Tina McKenzie, national chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said businesses would be left "floundering by this mass outage". She added: "We're calling on small businesses' clients to be patient and understanding at this tricky moment, falling on Friday 13th of all days. Small firms should also be aware that criminals and fraudsters may try to take advantage of them with fake offers of 'help'."
Microsoft said it had made "additional progress toward service recovery" starting with the Asia Pacific region and gradually working across other regions worldwide. The company said it is seeing "early signs of stabilisation", but service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels. Users in 74 countries reported issues with Microsoft services within an hour on Thursday, according to Downdetector, with reports about Outlook peaking at more than 2,000 times their normal level. On Friday, users from about 60 countries, mainly in Europe and Asia, continued to report trouble.
