A widespread Microsoft outage has entered its second day, disrupting access to Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services for millions of users worldwide. The tech giant has reported some signs of recovery, but engineers have yet to find a complete fix.
Services affected by the outage
Dozens of Microsoft 365 apps continue to report issues, according to the company's status website. The affected consumer apps include Outlook.com, OneDrive, OneNote, Microsoft To Do, and Teams. Microsoft warned that users may also see issues in other Microsoft 365 services.
Some users have been able to access files, while others continue to have trouble sending or receiving Outlook emails. Companies relying on Microsoft 365 Business or Enterprise suites face issues with multiple elements, including SharePoint Online, Apps Admin Center, Microsoft Planner, and MS Education.
Wider impact on organisations
The outage is being felt across various sectors. UK police forces and NHS GP surgeries have said some online services might be affected. The Metropolitan Police website said some online form submissions may be affected 'due to a global Microsoft service issue.' The UK government has said it has 'robust contingency plans in place to minimise disruption.'
Several airlines, including IndiGo, Akasa Air, and CemAir, have reported issues with email support and communications, although flights are thought to be unaffected. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and Anthropic are also reporting issues linked to services that rely on Microsoft.
Cause and recovery efforts
Microsoft has denied that a cyber attack caused the meltdown. Instead, the company appeared to pin the issue on servers that became 'unexpectedly unavailable,' causing an 'elevated load.' This, in turn, has 'strained' the infrastructure, it said. Experts have hinted that the issue could have stemmed from an internal issue like a troubled software update.
In its latest update, Microsoft said: 'We're seeing positive results for server stability after applying an upstream authentication/routing configuration component patch to a portion of our infrastructure. We'll continue to monitor its progress and are working to expand it to servers supporting active regions coming online. As of now, we are not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident.'
The company added: 'We will continue to treat this incident with urgency and priority until full resolution. Once mitigated, we will provide full details of the root cause, defence-in-depth repair items, and more within a post-incident Report.'
