Microsoft Struggles to Repair Worldwide Outage. Here's What You Need to Know

Microsoft said that as of Friday morning, users may still “be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services.” While it noted an “encouraging recovery progress in Europe,” with some access in North America “also improving,” it acknowledged that users may still experience “intermittent issues” as recovery actions continue and major gaps persist.

“At this time, we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident,” the company stated.

Outlook and Teams are widely-used workplace applications, with hundreds of millions of users. The disruption to the services has left some affected workers unable to access their emails, host meetings, or complete other Microsoft-dependent office tasks.

Baltimore County Government said its staff are "currently unable to send or receive emails due to the widespread Microsoft outage,” but assured the public that 911 and other essential County services had not been affected. The City of Jacksonville, Florida, and City of Austin, Texas, reported similar disruptions to its email capabilities.

The outage also impacted Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), raising concerns about over access to appointments and hospital schedules. Some NHS practices have reported not being able to send or receive emails, while others are still assessing the overall impact of the outage. Patients have been advised to make contact via phone rather than using email. As a result, some NHS boards have warned of an increased demand across phone lines.

In Japan, lawmaker Masanao Ozaki said the outage had affected the government's IT infrastructure and that officials were “closely watching the company's response.” Meanwhile, the Philippines' Supreme Court warned that “responses to emails and other transactions may be delayed.”

In Australia, federal bodies including intelligence agency ASIO and the Australian Federal Police were affected. Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke reiterated that Microsoft did not believe it was dealing with a cyberattack, suggesting the disruption could instead be related to a faulty software update.

"They believe they are dealing in some ways similar ‌to what we saw with respect to CrowdStrike, where there is an update that has gone awry," Burke said at a press conference.

A major Microsoft IT outage in 2024 grounded flights, sent TV stations off air, and disrupted online hospital systems. The malfunction was linked to a third party, a cybersecurity technology firm named CrowdStrike.

The current Microsoft outage began Thursday and peaked in the afternoon, with outage-tracking website Downdetector.com recording nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook problems and more than 45,000 reports involving Microsoft 365 in the U.S. around 1 p.m. E.T.