Microsoft Restores Microsoft 365 Services After Major Global Disruption

Microsoft said on Friday that it has restored access to its Microsoft 365 productivity suite after a widespread outage disrupted services for thousands of users, affecting businesses, enterprises, and remote workers across several regions.

According to data from outage-monitoring platform Downdetector, reports of service disruptions dropped sharply as systems were brought back online. As of 1:05 a.m. ET, around 113 users were still reporting problems, down from more than 15,800 complaints recorded at the peak of the outage roughly a day earlier.

The outage impacted multiple Microsoft 365 services that are widely used by organisations worldwide. Affected platforms included Outlook, which is used for enterprise email and calendar services, Microsoft Defender, the company’s cybersecurity offering, and Microsoft Purview, which provides data governance and compliance tools.

In an update posted on its official service status page on X, Microsoft said the affected infrastructure had been returned to a healthy operating state and that the service impact had been fully resolved. The company did not immediately disclose how many customers were affected or whether any data loss occurred during the disruption.

Earlier, Microsoft said it was rerouting traffic to alternate infrastructure as part of its recovery process after identifying an issue within a portion of its North American infrastructure. The affected systems were not processing network traffic as expected, leading to cascading service interruptions across multiple Microsoft 365 applications.

The company added that it had launched an internal investigation to determine the root cause of the outage and to implement safeguards to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Impact on businesses and enterprises

The disruption caused inconvenience for organisations that rely heavily on Microsoft 365 for day-to-day operations, including email communication, document collaboration, cybersecurity monitoring, and compliance workflows. Several users reported difficulties accessing email, delays in security alerts, and interruptions to administrative tools during the outage.

Microsoft 365 is a critical platform for enterprises globally, including government agencies, financial institutions, educational organisations, and small businesses, making service disruptions particularly significant.

While services have now been restored, the incident once again highlights the growing dependence of businesses on cloud-based productivity and security platforms, as well as the risks associated with large-scale infrastructure failures.

Microsoft said it will continue to monitor services closely and provide further updates if required.