Microsoft addresses global outage affecting millions

A technical issue affecting Microsoft servers caused a massive global outage that disrupted businesses, government agencies, schools, and healthcare systems across multiple countries. The disruption began on Thursday evening and lasted about 18 hours before services started gradually returning to normal on Friday. The company stated that the issue was not related to cyber-attacks or AI agents, and instead suggested it may have stemmed from server settings. Services such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Copilot experienced problems, alongside connected tools used by OpenAI and Anthropic. The outage impacted numerous organizations globally. In the UK, healthcare systems, police forces, and schools faced disruptions, while in the US, government offices and congressional staff relying on Outlook experienced issues. Microsoft issued an apology and worked to restore services gradually to ensure stability.