Microsoft 365: Microsoft services worldwide disrupted for more than twelve hours

Outlook, Teams and the AI ​​service Copilot were unavailable for many – initially US – users for most of the working day on Thursday. The problems then spread worldwide. After the German working day began, the first companies in this country also reported problems due to the current disruption.

The disruption is likely to restrict a number of companies over the course of the day: Microsoft products are among the most widespread software offerings among companies, authorities and educational institutions, including in Germany. A Microsoft spokesman in Germany did not want to comment on the problems and only referred to a channel of the US tech giant on Platform X.

According to Downdetector, the disruption led to around 200,000 reports of problems with Microsoft services, making it one of the company's most serious outages. Previous disruptions rarely lasted longer than several hours. Microsoft shares lost 0.4 percent in after-hours trading.

Sensitive government areas are also affected by the disruption. In Australia, the secret service and the federal police reported failures. The Canberra government activated an agreement with Microsoft to ensure priority system restoration. Australian Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft was not expecting a cyberattack. Rather, it is apparently a faulty update, similar to the global IT breakdown caused by the security company CrowdStrike in 2024. The US House of Representatives also reported restrictions for its users. The extent to which these problems also restrict German security authorities is currently an open question.

The effects also spread widely throughout the economy. Artificial intelligence developers Open AI and Anthropic investigated issues with interfaces to Microsoft services not working as expected. The US electric truck manufacturer Workhorse Group postponed the presentation of its quarterly figures due to IT problems. School districts, universities and hospitals also reported disruptions.

Microsoft previously stated that a number of servers were unexpectedly unavailable. However, this is not due to a sudden increase in data traffic. Just last month, a failure of the Azure cloud platform caused problems worldwide.

Microsoft says it is making progress little by little in resolving the extensive disruption to its services. “Thanks to our recent traffic optimization measures, we are seeing positive results in terms of service stability and increased capacity,” the software company said on Platform X. These measures would now be expanded to other affected regions in order to ensure lasting stabilization. There is a more detailed update for users.

Microsoft sells these products along with standard workplace software such as Word and Excel in a package under the M365 brand.