Microsoft struggles to restore services following global internal outage

Engineers at Microsoft continue working to fully restore services after a major technical failure disrupted Microsoft 365 platforms globally. The outage, which began on Thursday evening, affected millions of users across more than 70 countries, impacting applications including Outlook, Teams, Word, and Copilot.

Monitoring site Downdetector recorded nearly 130,000 reports of disruptions at its peak. Microsoft confirmed that the incident was caused by an internal glitch rather than a cyberattack. According to company officials, a process handling secure connections became overwhelmed, causing servers to freeze under traffic. Although engineers are implementing configuration changes and rolling back network updates, initial recovery efforts were hampered when restored servers became unresponsive again after traffic resumed. The company is currently prioritizing recovery for life, safety, and government services.

Sources: The Guardian, The Herald, STV News, Cyprus Mail, BBC News