· Desk editor: Hamza Qureshi · · Single source ·Updated

Microsoft 365 Services Resume After Global Outage

Microsoft 365 cloud services returned to operation after a widespread technical failure affected users in over 70 countries starting Thursday lunchtime.

Microsoft 365 Crawls Back to Life After a 24-Hour Outage
File photo Microsoft 365 Crawls Back to Life After a 24-Hour Outage Photo: WIRED

Outage Impact and Recovery Status

The disruption began around 12 pm ET on the East Coast before spreading globally within an hour. Microsoft confirmed that Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and other essential systems are now mostly back online. A company spokesperson stated that broad recovery and stability are visible across all affected services. The incident was introduced by an issue during a recent network capacity upgrade rather than a cyberattack.

Technical Cause and Investigation Details

Microsoft explicitly ruled out AI agents or any form of cyberattack as the cause of the debacle. Independent researcher Jonathan Leitschuh stated that restoring everything completely would probably cause users to find their inboxes becoming disorganized. The company increased queue time for emails to 48 hours to ensure every message gets delivered eventually. Users may still receive a flood of notifications as subsystems come back online over the next few hours.

Consequences and Future Reporting

This episode caused disruptions to numerous essential services, according to reports from governments in Japan through the United States. Airlines faced problems communicating with customers while law enforcement and emergency services ground to a halt completely. Hospitals also reported widespread interruptions to their daily operations throughout the affected regions. After completing an internal review of the incident, Microsoft pledged to release a comprehensive report detailing what occurred.

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