Microsoft Services Fully Restored After Global Outage Disrupted Over 70 Countries
Microsoft announced on Saturday that its services, including Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, were fully restored following a global outage that began on Thursday. The incident, caused by an issue during a network capacity upgrade rather than cyberattacks or AI agents, disrupted governments, healthcare systems, courts, airlines, and businesses in over 70 countries. While the exact number of affected individuals is unclear, Downdetector logged over 7.4 million reports, peaking at nearly 20,000 per minute. Experts highlighted the risks of global reliance on a single tech provider, with estimated insured losses between $300 million and $500 million.
Microsoft stated on Saturday morning that it had completed efforts to address the underlying issue and restored service to remaining impacted customers and regions following a global outage that began on Thursday. The disruption affected Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, and the AI assistant Copilot.
The company attributed the outage to an issue introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent network change. Microsoft explicitly ruled out cyberattacks or AI agents as causes.
Downdetector received outage reports from users in more than 70 countries and territories, logging more than 7.4 million reports worldwide. At its peak, the platform recorded nearly 20,000 reports per minute.
The outage caused widespread disruption across public and private sectors globally. In the UK, NHS England staff resorted to paper records, and ambulance services suffered a "serious impact" according to a union report. UK court systems experienced disruptions, with juries sent home early and prisoners not being transported to court.
In the US, House of Representatives staffers lost a day of work, and a Colorado detention facility could not process online bond payments. Australian federal police and ASIO, the national security agency, were also affected, though ASIO stated their systems were only partially impacted. Government agencies in Japan, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, India, and the Philippines reported operational disruptions.
In Canada, hospitals including CHUM in Montreal, Jewish General Hospital, and Unity Health in Toronto experienced outages but restored services by Friday. AI Minister Evan Solomon confirmed that the Government of Canada was also impacted.
Mario De Cicco of Morningstar DBRS estimated global insured losses from the outage at between $300 million and $500 million. Microsoft shares closed flat at $523.88 on Friday.
Approximately 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps, while Microsoft reported having more than 450 million paid commercial subscriptions in January. The scale of the incident has prompted experts to highlight the risks associated with global reliance on a single technology provider for critical infrastructure.