Microsoft outage disrupts governments and businesses worldwide, forces traders back to fax machines
A major Microsoft outage disrupted businesses and government agencies worldwide for more than 12 hours, affecting Outlook, Teams and Copilot — and forcing at least one financial company in Taiwan to use fax machines to confirm trades.
The disruption, which began on November 12 and continued into November 13, affected government agencies in the United States, Australia and Japan, as well as airlines, financial institutions and major corporations, Reuters reported.
According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, problems with Microsoft services were reported across 74 countries and territories within an hour. In the United States alone, reports of Outlook problems peaked at nearly 140,000.
The outage affected email, calendars and other Microsoft 365 features dependent on Exchange Online, Microsoft's cloud-based messaging service.
The consequences extended well beyond missed emails.
In Taiwan, one financial company canceled a bond repurchase transaction, while another resorted to fax machines to confirm trades, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the situation.
European stock exchange operator Euronext reported email communication problems, Danish shipping giant Maersk warned customers of delays, and British insurer Aviva activated backup plans for its earnings calls.
Indian airlines IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India reported disruptions to their email support services. In the United States, electric truck maker Workhorse Group postponed its financial results announcement.
AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic also reported problems with Microsoft connectors.
Microsoft attributed the disruption to server problems and said it was not aware of any malicious activity behind the outage.
In its latest update on November 13, the company said fixes were producing signs of stabilization, although services had not yet fully recovered.
The incident was the second major Microsoft 365 disruption this year, following an outage in January.
Josh Gilbert, a market analyst at trading platform eToro, told Reuters that repeated reliability problems could prompt companies to reconsider concentrating so much of their operations with a single technology provider.
For now, however, he noted that few businesses can easily abandon Microsoft's ecosystem.