Email, calendar services knocked out

Outage reports top 7.4 million worldwide

Microsoft. [Reuters]
Microsoft. [Reuters]

A global outage that knocked out Microsoft services including Outlook and Teams was resolved after roughly 36 hours, with prolonged disruptions to email, calendar management and video conferencing rippling across finance, aviation, healthcare and other sectors.

According to Reuters, Microsoft said all affected customers and regions had been fully restored as of around 6 a.m. GMT Saturday. The company said through its Microsoft 365 account on X that it had completed steps to address the root cause of the incident.

Outage reports began to jump sharply from around 5:25 p.m. GMT on Thursday. According to outage-tracking site Downdetector, more than 7.4 million reports were filed from over 70 countries. Reports peaked at roughly 20,000 per minute — more than 1,500 times the normal rate.

Microsoft said server problems had concentrated the impact on Exchange Online, its cloud-based email and calendar service. Its AI assistant Copilot was also affected. The company said no malicious external activity had been identified.

The disruption spread across businesses and public institutions. Britain's National Health Service and the London Metropolitan Police were among those affected, while pan-European exchange operator Euronext experienced email outages. Danish shipping company Maersk warned customers that information updates could be delayed, and Indian airlines reported disruptions to email-based customer support.

In Taiwan, financial firms saw their fund management operations affected. One firm canceled a bond repurchase transaction, while another resorted to faxes to confirm trades, Reuters said. US electric truck manufacturer Workhorse Group and Swiss luxury conglomerate Richemont postponed their earnings releases.

Insurance losses are also expected to be significant. Mario Di Cicco, a vice president at global credit rating firm Morningstar DBRS, estimated worldwide insured losses from the incident at between $300 million and $500 million.

The outage went well beyond a simple communications delay, disrupting trade confirmations, financial operations and fund management schedules. Some observers said the episode exposed the risks of heavy dependence on a single vendor's business software.


forest@heraldcorp.com