🔴 Live: Microsoft reports 'improvements' to Outlook services in North America, Europe

Microsoft's Outlook email service has been disrupted since late Thursday as the tech giant struggles to fix issues with its servers, hitting businesses and government agencies that use the popular work platforms in 74 countries and territories. The company said Friday it was making progress in restoring Outlook services in North America and Europe, with users reporting improvements in mailbox access. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates. England's health service triggers contingency after Microsoft outage England's National Health Service activated contingency plans in response to the global Microsoft outage, reverting to "other IT systems or paper records" to maintain essential care and appointments. "With the global Microsoft issue inevitably having a disruptive impact for staff, local NHS services are enacting long-standing measures to manage IT outages," a spokesperson said in a statement, acknowledging that the situation has disrupted staff operations. A union leader earlier claimed that the outage was having a "serious impact" on Britain's state health service. Microsoft reports 'encouraging' progress in Europe Microsoft said progress is being made in bringing its popular workplace software back online. “We’re seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure,” the company said in its latest update, as some users started reporting that their emails were restored. On a separate status page, the company reported “broader improvements” in North America and “sustained improvements across much of Europe,” as well as “encouraging recovery signals” in the Asia-Pacific region. We have now regained access to our email accounts at the FRANCE 24 newsroom, confirming the gradual restoration of Microsoft’s services. Microsoft outage expected to significantly affect German economy, government says Germany expects an outage affecting Microsoft services to have a significant impact on German businesses, a digital ministry spokesperson said. There have been no reports of major outages in Germany's federal administration, though, the spokesperson added. Rail operators across Europe advise passengers locked out of train tickets Rail operators in Germany, Canada and the UK have issued advice to passengers struggling to retrieve train tickets booked for Friday because of the global Microsoft outage. The companies warned that tickets sent by email may be temporarily inaccessible, but said passengers should still be able to retrieve them through the websites or apps where they originally purchased them. Microsoft reports 'additional progress' in restoring services Microsoft said it had made "additional progress" towards restoring services following a global outage, with traffic gradually returning across parts of its affected infrastructure. "We’re seeing improvements in key scenarios, including mailbox access and delayed email processing, though some intermittent issues may continue," the company said in a post on X. 🎥 ‘No signs of a cyberattack’: Microsoft faces a major Outlook outage Microsoft said "malicious" activity was not to blame for an Outlook outage that left users around the world without its crucial services but reported making headway in fixing the massive disruption. Businesses, governments and likely millions of individuals have been without services like Outlook email for over half a day, triggering wide-ranging consequences. Rail operators across Europe advise passengers locked out of train tickets Rail operators in Germany, Canada and the UK have issued advice to passengers struggling to retrieve train tickets booked for Friday because of the global Microsoft outage. The companies warned that tickets sent by email may be temporarily inaccessible, but said passengers should still be able to retrieve them through the websites or apps where they originally purchased them. Microsoft outage having 'serious impact' on UK health service, union says Microsoft's outage was having a "serious impact" on Britain's state health service, a union leader warned in a statement. National Health Service staff receiving emergency calls "are unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos", Rachel Harrison, public services head at the GMB union, said in the statement. How the Microsoft outage has affected companies and governments worldwide US-based industrial technology company Workhorse Group Inc. delayed a conference call for its quarterly earnings because of the outage. Hong Kong businessperson Danny Lau, who runs an aluminum firm, said his company's Outlook accounts could not receive updates from their US customers due to the outage. If the situation dragged on further, this could “impact the production timeline,” he said. Some banks in Hong Kong, an Asian financial hub, also saw part of their operations disrupted. Singapore’s Government Technology Agency said that government emails were down and that the agency is working with Microsoft to resolve the issue. The Philippines' Supreme Court said in a statement on X that the ongoing Microsoft 365 service outage has affected some of its operations, including email responses. In Japan, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said the outage impacted the government’s IT infrastructure and that they were “keeping a close eye on the developments.” Japanese authorities had taken steps including securing alternative communication tools such as telephones, the government said. OpenAI and Anthropic each reported that they were facing problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools, underscoring the ripple effects of outages as more people use artificial intelligence platforms to interact with other companies’ software. French government services disrupted by outage Local government services in France have been affected by the global Microsoft outage, with the town hall of Aulnay-sous-Bois, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, reporting a disruption to its email system. "All the city's services are currently without email due to a global outage affecting Microsoft services," the municipality said in a statement. "No emails can be sent or received," it added, stressing that municipal services remained reachable by telephone and public facilities were open as usual. 🎥 'One of the biggest outages ever': Disruption to Microsoft services enters second day An outage of Microsoft services such as Outlook, Teams and Copilot caused disruption to users around the world as the tech giant struggled to fix server problems it blamed for the problems. ⬇️ FRANCE 24’s tech editor Peter O’Brien takes a look at what we know about the outage which, given its scale and duration, makes it one of the “biggest ever”, he says. European stock market operator asks companies to phone after Outlook outage European stock market operator Euronext advised listed companies to use the telephone to communicate corporate information because of the Microsoft outage. "Euronext Corporate Actions and Listing teams are currently experiencing an email communication disruption and are unable to receive emails," the company, which runs exchanges in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Oslo, Athens and Milan, said in a corporate filing. "For urgent matters relating to suspensions, corporate actions management, Oslo major shareholding notifications, MyEuronext or Newspoint, issuers and their agents are advised to contact the relevant Exchange Operator by telephone," it added. Microsoft outage exposes 'fragility of our interconnected world', former French chief says The global Outlook outage "highlights the fragility of our interconnected world", Christophe Aulnette, former president of Microsoft France, told French broadcaster franceinfo. "An interconnected world creates points of vulnerability in central locations that can affect the entire planet," Aulnette said, citing a recent incident involving connected refrigerators. In mid-October, supermarkets in France were targeted by cyberattacks involving connected refrigeration systems. Aulnette said he "has no information" regarding a possible cyberattack targeting Outlook. Nevertheless, he believed that this outage "potentially shows that, with artificial intelligence, new sophisticated attacks can be developed". He also criticised Microsoft’s "confused communication", noting that the company seems "a bit at a loss, even though the outage isn’t affecting everyone". Microsoft outage causes disruption across French workplaces, users say The global Microsoft outage has caused significant disruption in French workplaces, with a medical laboratory among those reportedly affected, according to online reactions. “You cannot imagine the chaos caused by the Outlook outage in France and what it says about our lack of resilience and dependence on Microsoft,” Julien Cadot, an editorialist at French technology news website Numerama, wrote on X. In a series of posts, Cadot said he had received two accounts of the disruption within 10 minutes that morning. A blood-testing laboratory was reportedly unable to print or access information and had to turn away patients. At a higher education institution, the disruption caused widespread confusion because staff could no longer access room schedules or timetables, he said. Other users also reported consequences for their workplaces. “Fifty percent of my company is technically unemployed this morning,” one user wrote. Outlook outage affects British police services Police forces across the UK urged the public to report crimes by telephone after technical problems linked to the global Microsoft outage disrupted their ability to receive online submissions. "Due to a global Microsoft service issue, some online form submissions on our website may be affected," Hertfordshire Police said in a statement on X. South Wales Police also reported technical difficulties receiving reports through its website, while Dyfed-Powys Police said the disruption had affected both online crime reports and its general contact centre email address. Police forces across the United Kingdom have urged the public to report crimes by telephone after technical problems linked to a global Microsoft outage disrupted their ability to receive online submissions, according to the Hertfordshire and Dorset police said they were unable to process some online reports, asking people with time-critical but non-emergency information to call 101 instead. In emergencies, the public was urged to dial 999. South Wales Police also reported technical difficulties receiving reports through its website, while Dyfed-Powys Police said the disruption had affected both online crime reports and its general contact centre email address. Dyfed-Powys Police urged people to call 101 or contact the force through Facebook for non-urgent reports until services were restored. Microsoft reports seeing 'positive results' in service stability Microsoft said it was seeing improvements in service stability and capacity following its latest traffic optimisation measures. "We're implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions as we seek to attain persistent recovery," the company said on X. Microsoft says 'not aware of any malicious activity' behind Outlook outage Microsoft said that it was not aware of any "malicious activity" behind the hours-long disruption of its Outlook services. "As of now, we are not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident. We will continue to treat this incident with urgency and priority until full resolution," Microsoft said. Microsoft said that efforts to repair a major outage of Outlook were not going as expected and that the firm was seeking alternative solutions as users around the world were left without its crucial services Friday. The disruption, which Microsoft attributed to "elevated load" on its infrastructure, hit email as well as products such as Teams and the AI assistant Copilot for more than 12 hours. It said it was "not aware of any malicious activity" that could have caused the outage. The impact of the outage has been felt globally, with users ranging from companies to governments reporting that they were unable to communicate via Outlook. "We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected," Microsoft said on X. To display this content from X (Twitter), you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. The disruption went global within an hour, knocking out Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories, outage tracker Downdetector reported. A map posted by Downdetector on X showed the outage affected users across the Americas and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. One of the impacted countries was New Zealand, where the foreign ministry sent a notice saying its "ability to receive emails has been affected by the global Microsoft outage. This also impacts all New Zealand Embassies, Consulates and Representative Offices around the world." Microsoft initially said it was investigating outage reports "in the Americas", but later confirmed that the issue apparently affected "Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region". Microsoft 365 is the company's cloud-based subscription service that includes popular applications such as Outlook and Teams. "We've determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors," the company wrote on X. "We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," it added. Downdetector, which tracks online outages, showed a sharp decline around 0450 GMT in users' reports of disruptions in Washington and Hong Kong.