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DHAKA: Microsoft, one of the world’s leading US technology companies, has been hit by a major global technical outage, disrupting several widely used services, including email and cloud storage platforms.
Reuters reported the disruption on Friday (November 13), citing Downdetector, a website that monitors internet service outages.
Users in various countries and regions, including the United States, Australia and Bangladesh, have reported difficulties accessing Microsoft services.
According to Downdetector, around 130,000 users in the United States reported problems accessing Microsoft Outlook on Thursday afternoon local time.
In a statement posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Microsoft said it was making every effort to resolve the issue and attempting to restore services by restarting the affected servers.
Microsoft said the list of potentially affected services was extensive. These include Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365, Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Exchange Online, which are widely used for email, cloud-based file sharing, online meetings and office work.
The cloud-based cybersecurity service Microsoft Defender was also among the potentially affected services.
According to Reuters, the disruption has had widespread real-world consequences. Besides email communications, access to various databases, online classes, telehealth services and digital product-ordering systems has also been affected.
The report also noted that several government service centres in the United States were forced to suspend operations due to the outage.
Microsoft experienced similar service disruptions earlier this year. In January, Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services were unavailable for several hours. Source: Agency.