Microsoft outage lasts 22 hours, disrupting global services

A critical Microsoft outage that lasted more than 22 hours has highlighted the extent to which businesses and public bodies rely on a small number of major tech firms.

Impact across the globe

The failure affected Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook and Teams, after routine automated checks took some servers offline and overloaded the remaining ones. Engineers restored services gradually, with email queues only now approaching normal levels.

Around 430 million people in more than 70 countries use Microsoft 365, and the disruption was felt by organisations ranging from the US House of Representatives and Australian intelligence agencies to Singapore’s court system and airline support desks in India.

Flora Hamilton, executive director of the Small Business Charter, described the outage as a “stark reminder” of how much firms rely on digital systems such as Outlook to communicate with customers and generate income.

Walter Pasquarelli, an AI strategist, said the incident exposed the vulnerabilities of governments, businesses and critical infrastructure, warning that future AI‑linked services could amplify the impact of similar failures.

Microsoft has apologised, attributing the incident to a technical failure rather than a cyber‑attack, and said it is reviewing the cause to prevent a repeat. No ETA has been given for full restoration.

Source: BBC News. Photo: panumas nikhomkhai / Pexels.