Outlook and Microsoft 365 begin returning to normal after global outage as Microsoft issue update
Hours after going down, Outlook and Microsoft 365 are starting to return to normal following a global outage as the tech giant has released an update.
Reports of issues began yesterday (November 12), with problems accessing the apps extending hours before a resolution was found, with millions of people starting work this morning without access to most Microsoft services.
Microsoft released an update to say that it is seeing ‘improvements in service availability, with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels’.
However, some users ‘may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues’.
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The statement went on to say: “We're closely monitoring service health and validating recovery across affected connection methods to ensure sustained service stability.
“At this time, we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident. We will continue to treat this with urgency until full mitigation, and we will share a full Post-Incident Report with root cause and defence-in-depth actions after mitigation is complete.”
Speaking to the BBC, Professor James Ferryman from the University of Reading, explained why the outage is taking so long for Microsoft to fix, highlighting how servers have been getting 'swamped'.
He said: "The trouble is that this kind of failure snowballs. One server falls over, its work gets passed to the next one, and meanwhile huge numbers of phones and laptops keep trying to get back in. You can't just turn it all back on at once. You have to bring it back bit by bit."
The outage hasn't just impacted offices as the tech giant is also used by AI companies, with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI having reported issues.
It is believed that more than 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps, made even more complicated by 90% of Fortune 500 companies using Microsoft's Copilot AI chatbot, meaning the technical problem has caused widespread chaos for many businesses.
Microsoft denies claims of a cyberattack
While it is still unclear as to what caused the outage, according to Sky's technology correspondent Rowland Manthorpe, it was not the result of a cyberattack. This was backed up by Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna, who took to X, formerly Twitter, to say: "We will continue to share more information as soon as we have it, and for now I can confirm that there is no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity.”
Speaking to the Sky’s Mornings, Manthorpe reiterated that the firm 'hasn't released a great amount of detail' but, debunking our cyberattack fears, added: "That normally means that it's some kind of mistake internally and very often it's a botched software update."
In a previous statement, Microsoft said: "We’re seeing continued recovery progress across affected regions, with broader improvements in North America, sustained improvements across much of Europe, and encouraging recovery signals in Asia Pacific.
"Some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as mitigation continues across remaining affected infrastructure.
"Our focus remains on stabilizing recovered infrastructure, completing mitigation in remaining impacted areas, and reducing delayed email queues and backlogs while we validate service consistency across connection methods."
