Microsoft has issued an apology
Microsoft has issued an apology following an almost 24-hour global outage affecting its services on Friday, revealing an issue linked to an earlier network “capacity upgrade” as the reason.
The widespread disruption hit Microsoft platforms early Friday morning, impacting services including Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Defender XDR.
Other affected platforms include Microsoft Planner, Microsoft To Do, Microsoft In tune, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Microsoft Purview services.
Early on Saturday, a status update from Microsoft 365 Status on X issued an apology for the “disruption” caused by the lengthy outage.
“We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused you and your business,” the post read.
“We know the trust you place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously.”
Microsoft revealed that the outage was caused by an issue linked to an earlier network upgrade, which surfaced following a more recent network change.
Microsoft ruled out a cyberattack or any disruption from AI agents.
“This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents.”
“The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change.”
According to the update issued 5.00am, the impacted Microsoft platforms were beginning to reach “broad stability”.
“We are seeing broad recovery and stability across our services,” the update read.
“We have addressed the underlying issue and continue to restore service to remaining customers and regions.”
“Given the scale of demand, we restored services gradually, validating stability at each stage.
“While this took longer, it helped ensure a stable restoration.”
Microsoft is expected to provide a full incident report once a review of the incident is complete.
Users have been advised that platform conditions will improve as the recovery process continues.
“As infrastructure stabilises, we’re still draining queued messages and rebalancing traffic, so customers may see improved sign-in/access while delivery and processing continue to catch up.”
“We do not have an ETA for full recovery yet. Service access can recover before mail flow fully normalizes.”
