Microsoft Global Outage Fix Falls Short as 70+ Countries Hit

Summary

• A Microsoft outage is affecting services including Teams, Outlook and AI software Copilot - here's what we know
• It's hard to know exactly how many users are affected,writes our tech reporter, but with 430 million people known to use Microsoft 365 services - it all points to this being a massive, global outage
• Issues started on Thursday, with monitoring website Downdetector seeing problems reported in more than 70 countries
• Microsoft says its attempts to fix the issue are not "taking as expected", adding that the issue hasn't been caused by a cyber-security breach
• UK Parliament says it's affected and "alternative communication arrangements are in place"; an NHS doctor says Microsoft services are "central" to GP practices and warns of disruption; in Australia, spy and federal police agencies also report issues
• How are you affected? Jack, a teacher, tells us he can't access emails but lesson plans are available. Meanwhile, Martin says it was "bliss" to wake up to no emails - before he realised "today is a crucial day to conclude a business deal"

Have you been affected?

Media caption, Watch: What happened overnight with the Microsoft global outage

Live Reporting

Edited by Imogen James and Jenna Moon

1. Microsoft has given another update as it works to fix the outage.

It says it is seeing "early signs of stabilisation", but service capacity has "not yet returned to normal levels".

System health "remains variable" it says, as traffic is "carefully reintroduced", it says.

"As part of this effort, we are extending the email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while service recovery continues," the statement says.

The email timeout window is, effetively, the amount of time a client like Outlook will spend waiting to receive an email.

Microsoft is doing this to avoid a situation where emails which have been sent - such as from a Gmail account or something else unaffected - still ultimately arrive when things are fixed.

Microsoft says it is continuing to "treat this with urgency", and will share a full report after the incident is resolved.

About sharing 2. Nathan Standley Education reporter

Many schools are reporting that they too are affected by the Microsoft outage this morning.

Some have taken to social media to encourage parents to get in touch with them by phone, rather than email, for things like reporting pupil absence.

Schools from Bishop Fox's Community School in Taunton, Somerset, to the Queen Elizabeth Academy in Atherstone, Warwickshire, and the Stockport School have all said on X that their emails are currently down.

We have been in touch with the Department for Education about how the education system is being affected more widely and will report back what they tell us.

About sharing 3. Tom Gerken Tech reporter

I’ve been writing about outages for years, and one problem we always come up against is a question of scale.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, companies are rarely eager to tell us just how many people are affected when their products become inaccessible.

So, we often rely on the website Downdetector, which tracks online outages. It said it received 43,000 reports of issues with Microsoft Outlook at around 07 GMT, but that number is typically a low estimate.

For one thing, it’s only helpful for the countries where folk are awake - at its peak, there were more than 130,000 reports in the US, a number far lower now it's the middle of the night.

And the other glaring issue is it only really tells us how many people use the website. Think of this - are you affected by the outage and did you tell Downdetector about it?

I think for a lot of people, the answer to that question would be a “yes” followed by a “no”.

With 430 million people using Office365 services according to Microsoft, you have to wonder just how many aren’t able to access their emails this morning.

It all points to this being a massive, global outage.

About sharing 4. Chris Mason Political editor

Image source, Getty Images

MPs are reporting their access via parliamentary accounts to Microsoft products is currently down.

A parliamentary spokesperson said: “We are aware of the global issue affecting Microsoft email services, which is impacting users of the parliamentary network. We are working with Microsoft to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

"Alternative communication arrangements are in place, allowing today’s business to continue.”

The House of Commons will sit as normal from 09.30 this morning.

About sharing 5. Tom Espiner Business reporter

Journalists here at BBC News are picking up phones and putting in calls to a number of organisations such as major supermarkets, banks, transport hubs, and government departments, to see if they’ve been affected, and if there's no immediate answer we’re waiting to hear back.

These efforts are being a little hampered by two things. Firstly, our corporate emails are not working, so we’re phone bashing.

Secondly, some organisations have done away with giving out a phone number for their press offices - instead providing an email.

It’s easy to guess the difficulty with this: if you’re contacting an organisation to see if their email is working, it’s probably best not to email them to do so - it might not be getting through.

About sharing 6. Dr Tim Frank, an NHS GP in Penzance, Cornwall, tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Microsoft products are "central" to the operation of his area's primary care and community services.

He adds that he has been unable to receive any emails overnight or again this morning.

"This is going to be very disruptive today and Fridays are always a heavily laden day due to the upcoming weekend," he says.

The doctor says alternative communication numbers are already being distributed among teams so no patients suffer.

About sharing 7. Tinshui Yeung Live reporter

The UK National Pharmacy Association has told me that the Microsoft outage is also affecting pharmacies across the country.

A spokesperson says the outage is affecting access to the NHS email system, limiting pharmacies’ ability to communicate with GP practices and some patients.

“Please bear with your pharmacy teams today, where waits may be longer than normal and there may be delays to some prescriptions,” he says.

About sharing 8. Readers in the UK have been getting in touch with the BBC to say how the Microsoft outage is impacting their days.

Teachers Jack and Matt are affected - Jack says his emails are currently unavailable but lesson plans are still accessible, while Matt is unable to get on to One Drive to use his school's resources.

Dave says he has lost his calendar entries and has been unable to access emails since just after 21 on Thursday.

He says: "This is having a terrible effect on my business and I’m so stressed."

Meanwhile, Martin says he will have to rely on phone calls outside of Teams throughout his workday.

"Have woken up to no new emails... absolute bliss, or it was before I realised today is a crucial day to conclude a business deal," he says.

About sharing 9.

Image source, PA

In an environment where "we're so dependent on technology", systems need to be "more resilient", Defence Minister Luke Pollard tells BBC Breakfast.

"It's deeply frustrating when your tech doesn't work", he says, explaining that the government are assessing the impact and will put out a statement once they've finished.

"Microsoft are onto the problem, they're making steps for it and I hope that they can resolve it very soon," he says.

"But I'm afraid that in an environment where we're so dependent on technology, we do need to make sure that these systems are more resilient and where there are problems, that they can recover faster," he adds.

"I imagine that is the conversation that many of my government cyber colleagues are having with Microsoft at this moment."

About sharing 10. Harry Farley Political correspondent

The government is "working closely" with Microsoft to assess "any impact on government services" by the company's outage.

A spokesperson said there are "robust contingency plans in place to minimise disruption".

About sharing 11. Multiple police forces in the UK say they have been affected by the Microsoft outage.

The Metropolitan Police says on its website: “Due to a global Microsoft service issue, some online form submissions may be affected.

"If your report is time-critical but not an emergency, please call 101. In an emergency, call 999.”

The Greater Manchester Police and North Yorkshire Police websites also shows the same message.

South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police have also reported similar issues and are asking people to call if they need to get in touch.

Image source, Metropolitan Police About sharing 12. Tom Espiner Business reporter

Image source, Getty Images

The operations of three major UK airports - Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted - have been unaffected by the Microsoft Outlook outage, spokespeople have said.

“Everything is operating as per usual at Heathrow,” a spokeswoman told the BBC via text message.

A spokesman for Manchester Airport said in a phone conversation that the outage had not affected any operational systems, and everything was running as normal.

The Manchester Airport corporate set-up was affected, as well as some minor technical processes. In addition, the airport is using a work-around for processing domestic passengers, but this is an established process, he said.

If anything changes as the day goes on - for example, if airport retailer systems are affected - then the airport will post that on social media, the spokesman added.

Stansted Airport is "operating as normal", a spokesman said via text message, adding that the impact of the outage was "minimal".

About sharing 13. Harry Farley Political correspondent

We are chasing Whitehall departments for how government services are affected. But I'm told UK intelligence operations are unaffected by the outage.

While some elements of the security services use Microsoft, there is a separate system for anything secret and that has not been hit by the issue.

About sharing 14.

Image source, Getty Images

The knock-on effects of the latest Microsoft outage "hammer home" the point of companies needing a contingency plan to communicate when such incidents occur, a global cyber-security advisor has said.

Jake Moore of cyber-security firm ESET tells Radio 4's Today programme the issue originates from several computers being down and other computers having to cope with the excess traffic.

"Just like on a motorway when you block one lane, you have to put all of the excess traffic through just one or two lanes and then everything goes and backs up, it slows down," he says.

Moore says some companies use a particular set of servers in one part of the world while others use servers elsewhere, which is the reason why some users may be noticing their Teams account is working but their emails are not updating.

About sharing 15. Microsoft says it is "seeing positive results" for service stability and increased capacity as it continues to work on fixing the outage.

Microsoft says that it's now "implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions".

It adds it will continue to monitor progress and expand it to servers supporting "active regions coming online".

Earlier, we heard that the problem was caused by an overloading of certain servers after others had failed.

About sharing 16. Microsoft have not said how many people are currently affected by the outage to some of its services, although we know the company has around 430 million users globally.

Downdetector is an internet monitoring website where users can report issues with specific sites.

For example, at around 07 GMT, they received at least 43,000 reports of issues with Microsoft Outlook, an email and calendar application, across 72 countries.

The real figure affected is likely much higher, as this number just shows us the people who went to the website to report the issue.

Toggling between countries on Downdetector showed spikes in reports in many European countries, where people are now waking up. There were also fewer reports in countries in Asia and the Pacific regions as night falls and people head to bed.

About sharing 17.

Image source, Getty Images

Microsoft has said in its latest update it is seeing "marginal success" in its attempts to fix the problem - but it remains unclear what is behind it.

The company said earlier the issue had been caused by a number of its servers - powerful computers that process tasks like work tools and other apps - being unexpectedly unavailable, straining the remaining infrastructure.

It says it is not aware of any malicious activity causing the incident and will give full details of "the root cause" once it has been mitigated in a post-incident report.

"We will continue to treat this incident with urgency and priority until full resolution," it says.

About sharing 18. Microsoft says it has observed "marginal success" in its latest efforts to treat the incident.

The company has said in its latest update that is it continuing to monitor activity across regions to evaluate server status and determine what actions it can take to improve capacity.

It says this consists of reviewing server performance as well as confirming developed patches have been applied, and are working as intended after infrastructure reboots are completed.

About sharing 19. Osmond Chia Business reporter

The Microsoft outage highlights the risks of relying on a single technology provider for critical operations, which can be brought to a standstill in the event of an IT issue, says Nicky Choo from cyber-security firm Mimecast.

His firm, which uses Microsoft tools, is able to continue work as they have alternative platforms to turn to.

"Businesses should review that dependence and build in alternatives, with clear contingency plans to keep essential operations running during an outage," Choo says.

With Microsoft services down, some people have had to improvise at work.

Yazid Ahmad, a communications consultant, says he has been sending emails to other firms through their personal e-mails that are on other tech platforms like Gmail.

"Its the first time I had to do that. I'm sure so many others are doing a similar thing," Yazid says. "But I simply wouldn't know if I miss an important email."

About sharing 20. Microsoft has been working to fix a global outage with some of its services, including Teams, Outlook and its artificial intelligence software Copilot experiencing "connectivity problems". This is what we know at the moment:

• First reports:Thursday saw a surge of reports of issues with Microsoft services on monitoring website Downdetector. At around 18 GMT,nearly 140,000 people had flagged problems with Outlook - more than 2,000 times the normal level

• The cause: Microsoft saysthe cause was "elevated load" on its infrastructure - meaning servers had higher-than-normal stress. In this case, some servers became "unexpectedly unavailable", overloading the others

• Ripple effect:Because Microsoft infrastructure is used by other tech companies, we're also seeing knock-on effects with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic reporting issueswith their tools

• Struggles to fix:The technology conglomerate first said it was "seeing positive results" in its efforts to restart services. But, several hours later, it said in a subsequent update that the fixes weren't taking "as expected" and it was still fixing issues on multiple fronts

• No signs it was malicious:Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna saidthis is not a cyber-security incident.An expert told the BBC earlier that the outage looked like "incredible incompetence"

• The scale of the impact:From government systems in Singapore and Japan, to Australian spy agencies andFilipino Supreme Court communications - the outage's affects are being felt in at least 74 countries across the world