A global Microsoft outage has left millions of people without access to essential digital tools, disrupting emails, workplace communications, and critical public services. The UK Minister for Cyber, Liz Lloyd, has issued a statement confirming that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has been working with Microsoft to establish the 'full picture' around the incident.
Outage Timeline and Scale
Monitoring website Downdetector first recorded a spike in UK issues around 6.15pm on Thursday (12 November), with Outlook complaints peaking at more than 2,000 times their normal level across 74 countries, including the UK, US, India, and New Zealand. Disruption continued into today across roughly 60 countries, primarily in Europe and Asia.
Microsoft earlier confirmed that the incident 'does not appear to be the result of a cyber attack or malicious activity.' The outage has mainly affected back-office functions, such as messaging and email.
Government Response
In her statement, Liz Lloyd said: "The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has been working with Microsoft and departments across Government to establish the full picture around the global outage at Microsoft and activate public sector contingency plans where needed. I have spoken to the CEO of Microsoft UK about their plans for a full return to normal services as soon as possible, which is well underway and seeing positive results."
She added that 999 calls are unaffected, as are NHS 111 services. HMRC and DWP phone lines remain fully operational, though people may experience longer than usual waiting times, and there are no reports of disruption to the transport network as a result of the outage.
Impact on Public Services
It was reported earlier today that the outage hit NHS email systems, prompting health trusts to enact long-standing contingency measures, including using alternative IT systems and paper records, to keep services running. Forces including Greater Manchester Police were also reported to not be receiving crime and other reports made through their websites as a result of continuing Microsoft outages.
Lloyd encouraged people to follow advice from the services they need on alternative ways to get in touch where email or web forms may be unavailable. She concluded: "We will review this incident and the lessons learned to inform our ongoing work to raise digital resilience across the UK, just as we are doing under the Government Cyber Action Plan and the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill."
