Microsoft hit by massive global outage, blames overload on servers

Microsoft is scrambling to fix a major global outage that knocked out Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services for millions of people around the world.

The problem started Thursday afternoon and spread to at least 74 countries within an hour. Companies, schools, hospitals, courts, police, and governments were all affected. Some people could not send or receive emails, join meetings, or get verification codes for bank transfers.

In the UK, pharmacies struggled to receive prescriptions from doctors. In the US, a jail in Colorado had to stop online bond payments and ask people to come in person. In the Philippines, the Supreme Court said its work was delayed. In Japan, government ministries lost email communication.

Microsoft said the outage was not caused by a cyberattack or malicious activity. The company blamed an “elevated load” on its servers and said some servers became “unexpectedly unavailable.”

After more than 12 hours, Microsoft said it was starting to see progress. It applied a patch to fix an authentication and routing problem, and email queues began to clear. By Friday morning, service was improving in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific, but many users still faced delays and intermittent access.

Microsoft extended its email timeout window to 48 hours so delayed messages would not be lost.

A former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said this could be one of the biggest outages ever, possibly worse than the Amazon Web Services outage last year and the CrowdStrike outage in 2024.

Microsoft says it will release a full report with the root cause once recovery is complete.