A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted business and enterprise services on Thursday, leaving many users across North America unable to access their accounts or send emails. Wired reports that the sudden disruption affected popular cloud applications including Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint Online.
Key takeaways
- Microsoft 365 business and enterprise services suffered a major outage on Thursday.
- The disruption affected users primarily in North America trying to access Exchange Online and Teams.
- Downdetector recorded a large spike in complaints around noon before reports began dropping.
- Microsoft stated there is currently no indication that a cyberattack caused the downtime.
What caused the Microsoft outage?
Wired reports that Microsoft posted on its 365 status page on X around 10:40 am ET that it was investigating problems with Microsoft Teams functionality. By shortly before 1 pm ET, the company acknowledged difficulties accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. Microsoft stated that its network was experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, but clarified that the issue stemmed from servers going offline rather than increased user traffic.
As systems struggled, Microsoft began redistributing connection traffic across its worldwide infrastructure to balance the load. The company paused all deployments, shifted traffic off damaged infrastructure, and restarted affected servers. A Microsoft spokesperson told Wired that the firm was aware of the situation and working to restore services. Outage reports on Downdetector showed a spike around noon, with numbers falling by 1:15 pm ET.
Exchange online and cloud tool disruptions
Impacted products during the incident included Microsoft Copilot 365 and Microsoft Defender XDR alongside SharePoint Online. In a status update shared on X just before 3 pm ET, Microsoft explained that a problem was causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable. Engineers attempted to reboot these systems to bring them back online. Cloud service outages happen often for reasons ranging from configuration mistakes to Domain Name System resolution issues.
Why it matters
Business users who rely on cloud tools for daily operations faced immediate workflow halts during the Thursday incident. While major Microsoft disruptions are rare, they do happen. A corrupted update from security firm Crowdstrike took down Microsoft Azure services for hours in July 2024, causing massive financial losses globally. Although Thursday's event caused significant frustration, Microsoft did not find any evidence of a cyberattack.
Frequently asked questions
Affected services included Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, and Microsoft Defender XDR, primarily impacting business and enterprise customers in North America.
The outage occurred on Thursday, with Microsoft first posting about issues with Teams at around 10:40 am ET and reporting problems with Exchange Online mailboxes by just before 1 pm ET.
Wired reports that there is currently no indication that a cyberattack caused the Microsoft outage.
Microsoft paused all deployments, moved traffic off affected infrastructure, redistributed connection traffic worldwide, and restarted affected servers that failed automated health checks.
Microsoft stated that a problem caused servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable, leading to elevated network load across multiple regions.
Based on reporting by Wired. Read the original article
