Microsoft apologises after global outage disrupts services in dozens of countries

Microsoft has apologised for a worldwide outage that disrupted public services and businesses, and reported broad recovery for Outlook email and other services. The company said the disruption, which began on Thursday, was caused by a technical issue and not by any cyber attack or AI activity.

The outage affected Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories, according to the Downdetector tracker. Health care services in the United Kingdom, visa processing in New Zealand and email support at several Indian airlines were among the areas affected.

Microsoft later said the problem stemmed from an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a recent network change, and that it had addressed the underlying issue while restoring service to remaining customers.