Microsoft Global Outage Cripples Services Worldwide

The Cliff News | 13 November 2026

A major global outage affecting Microsoft's cloud services continued to cause widespread disruption on Friday, impacting businesses, government operations, and millions of users across multiple countries. The widespread issues began on Thursday and have significantly hampered access to critical applications such as Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 services.

Despite over 12 hours since the initial report, Microsoft engineers are still working to fully restore services. While the company acknowledged some progress, recent updates indicated that implemented fixes were not yielding the expected results, leaving many grappling with the ongoing connectivity problems. Crucially, Microsoft has stated it has found no evidence of malicious activity behind the extensive disruption.

Global Impact Across Sectors

The outage's reach extended across continents, causing significant operational challenges. In Hong Kong, banking institutions like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs reported employee inability to access emails and Microsoft Teams, leading to potential backlogs of millions of messages and affecting international business communications.

The Australian government and its educational institutions were also heavily affected. Employees struggled to access essential applications, prompting Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to compare the incident to a previous major outage. Burke indicated that Microsoft suspected an update-related problem rather than a cyberattack.

Government and Judicial Systems Affected

In Japan, government IT infrastructure was severely impacted, with ministries and agencies facing difficulties sending emails throughout Friday. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki noted that government employees were resorting to physical document copies as a workaround.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines reported that the Microsoft 365 disruption had caused delays in its operations, warning of slower responses to emails and other transactions. Similarly, Singapore's Government Technology Agency confirmed that government email services were down and that they were collaborating with Microsoft for a resolution.

Airlines and US Businesses Face Delays

Indian airlines also experienced email disruptions. IndiGo stated the outage affected its email support services, limiting customer query reception, though other support channels and flight operations remained unaffected. Akasa Air issued an advisory informing passengers of delays in its email support services.

Several US city governments reported widespread email problems, advising residents to use phone contact methods. The industrial technology company Workhorse Group was forced to postpone its quarterly earnings conference call due to the ongoing technical difficulties.

AI Platforms Report Connectivity Issues

The outage's impact extended to the artificial intelligence sector, with prominent platforms like OpenAI and Anthropic reporting problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools. This highlights the broad dependency on integrated software services and the cascading effects of such widespread failures.

Understanding the Outage

Microsoft has indicated that the disruption is primarily affecting its Microsoft 365 services that interface with its Exchange Online and email infrastructure. Key services experiencing difficulties include Outlook, Teams, and its AI assistant Copilot.

The company described its approach as measured, focusing on identifying and repairing the affected infrastructure while exploring various methods to pinpoint the root cause and restore services. The outage spread rapidly, with tracking website Downdetector registering issues in approximately 74 countries within an hour, and over 130,000 users reporting problems with Outlook at its peak on Thursday.

Microsoft initially reported service health improvements, but a subsequent update acknowledged that these changes were not performing as anticipated. "We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," the company stated via X. Microsoft is actively pursuing alternative strategies to resolve the incident and continues to treat it with urgency until full service restoration is achieved.