A global Microsoft outage has disrupted critical services across the United Kingdom, including the National Health Service (NHS), police forces, and schools, affecting email and messaging platforms such as Outlook, Teams, and Copilot.
Microsoft stated on Friday that services were gradually being restored globally after a technical issue caused by higher-than-usual stress on its servers. The company apologized for the disruption, which it confirmed was not a cyber-security incident.
NHS England advised patients to keep appointments unless otherwise notified, while several major police forces urged the public to call them for crime reports instead of using online forms. The outage also impacted pharmacies, affecting their ability to communicate with general practitioner (GP) practices and patients, potentially leading to longer waits and prescription delays.
The GMB union’s national secretary, Rachel Harrison, reported a “serious impact” on ambulance and NHS trusts, noting that 111 and 999 services were unable to refer patient details normally, creating a backlog. However, emergency and life-threatening call-outs appeared unaffected.
Schools also faced significant disruption, with teachers, office staff, and parents unable to access key resources on calendars, emails, and internal cloud servers. Some universities, like the University of Portsmouth and the University of Aberdeen, extended assignment deadlines or waived late submission penalties due to the system failures.
Beyond the UK, the outage affected schools, healthcare systems, businesses, courts, and governments worldwide. Reports of problems surfaced in at least 74 countries, with many users unable to send or receive emails, view files, or access calendar details. Microsoft acknowledged that some users might still experience intermittent issues as recovery efforts continue.
The company attributed the ongoing outage to a problem during an earlier network capacity upgrade. It also extended the “timeout window” for emails to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages as delivery catches up. Experts described the outage as potentially the “most disruptive” business email outage of all time, highlighting Microsoft’s critical role in the internet’s backbone.
Other organizations affected included Royal Mail, which saw some online services unavailable, and parliamentary accounts for Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK. The Scottish government activated its “resilience operations” to assess the impact, with Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) also confirming email system failures.
Tech giants OpenAI and Anthropic also reported problems with their connections to Microsoft’s services, affecting some of their AI tools. The financial impact of the outage was expected to cost billions of dollars in Australia, according to risk advisory firm RSM Australia, with government agencies and national security services unable to access or send emails.
In the US, government offices, including congressional offices and municipal services in cities like Tampa, Florida, experienced disruptions. Law enforcement offices, such as a sheriff’s county in Colorado, were unable to process bond payments online. Japanese shipping company Sagawa Express and pharmaceutical firm Taisho also reported service interruptions.
Microsoft stated it would provide a full report on the root cause after an internal investigation.
Background
- The outage, which began Thursday evening, lasted roughly 18 hours before services started to recover just before midday GMT on Friday.
- More than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps worldwide.
- The company ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause of the outage.
Why it matters for Nepal
Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air reported problems with their email support services due to the outage, while Air India temporarily rerouted its email services to minimize impact. This could affect Nepalis traveling through or to India who rely on these airlines for communication.
