Microsoft outage persists, affecting global businesses and financial markets
Microsoft reported marginal progress in restoring its services after a widespread outage that disrupted email, collaboration tools and trading platforms worldwide.
Microsoft said it is continuing to monitor activity across regions and has applied patches after infrastructure reboots, noting "marginal success" in restoring service and expanding capacity with virtual machines. The company added that it is scaling up virtual machines to reduce load and performing force syncs for recent network changes, while acknowledging issues with machines stuck in a bad state.
The outage impacted financial traders, who reported difficulty accessing email-based authentication for trading platforms and delayed trade confirmations, prompting some to revert to phone and messaging methods. Eugene Koh, a sales trader at CMC Markets Singapore, said communication shifted to phone calls and increased WhatsApp traffic.
US AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic experienced problems with Microsoft connectors, and Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air reported disruptions to email support services. In Taiwan, more than a hundred users reported Outlook and Teams outages, with some posting humorous remarks on social media.
Australian businesses faced significant disruption, with risk advisory firm RSM Australia estimating direct and indirect costs could reach billions of dollars. Ashwin Pal, a risk expert, noted many clients had activated business continuity plans but lacked a fallback, leaving them at a standstill.
The Australian Computer Society called for a review of reliance on single-provider cloud services, urging the government to improve public communication about such incidents. Chief executive Dr Prins Ralston asked who would be accountable for informing the public and addressing lost productivity.
Market analyst Josh Gilbert of eToro said investors are likely to absorb the current outage but warned that repeated disruptions could affect Microsoft’s reputation and future sales of services such as Copilot.
Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna confirmed the outage was not the result of a cyber-attack, stating there was no indication of malicious activity.