Microsoft has apologized after a global Outlook and Teams outage knocked out email and work chats across two workdays. The company says it was a technical issue, not a cyberattack, ABC News reports via ABC11.
The trouble started just before 1 p.m. ET Thursday, when Microsoft said it was looking into reports of users who couldn’t reach their mailboxes. Within an hour, Downdetector had logged more than 100,000 reports. What looked like an Americas-only issue turned out to affect Microsoft 365 users in any region, hitting businesses, schools, governments and healthcare providers. New York City’s emergency management office even warned residents that city agencies could be slow to answer email.
What Microsoft Said
By Friday morning, inboxes were thawing out and email queues were “approaching normal levels,” though some users could still see delays. Microsoft said the problem started during an earlier network capacity upgrade and surfaced after a recent network change. “This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents,” the company said.
Charles Lamanna, an executive vice president at Microsoft, said the company regretted the disruptions and its teams are reviewing how to prevent a repeat.
The IAHHM Take
Put this next to Friday’s FAA ground stop and it was a rough week for the systems everybody assumes will just work. One upgrade goes sideways and millions of people can’t send an email. One overloaded router and the whole country’s planes sit on the tarmac.
For creatives and small business owners in our lane, it’s a reminder not to keep everything in one place. Back up your contacts, keep your important files somewhere you can reach them offline, and have a second way to reach your clients and collaborators. Your bag shouldn’t depend on one company’s servers.
And if the outage gave you an unexpected break, our weekend watch list has you covered. Did the outage wreck your workday, or was it a low-key vacation?
Source: ABC News / ABC11
