Technology giant Microsoft has issued an apology after a widespread outage affected thousands of users worldwide, causing disruptions to services such as Outlook and Minecraft. The incident, which occurred on Tuesday afternoon, was reported by users on Downdetector, a website that tracks service outages.
This comes on the heels of a recent global IT outage that left over eight million computers inaccessible due to a flawed software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Microsoft has since implemented a fix for the current issue and is monitoring the situation closely to ensure full recovery, although they have not provided a specific timeline for resolution.
In a statement on social media, Microsoft expressed regret for the inconvenience caused and assured users that their experts are working to resolve the issue promptly. The outage has impacted Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud computing platform, as well as Microsoft 365, which includes popular services like Microsoft Office and Outlook.
Computer security expert Professor Alan Woodward expressed surprise at the outage, noting that such critical cloud-based systems should ideally have redundant infrastructure to prevent a single point of failure. The incident has also affected other services reliant on Microsoft’s platforms, with Cambridge Water reporting issues with their website due to the outage.
As Microsoft prepares to announce its latest financial reports, users are hopeful for a swift resolution to the technical difficulties that have disrupted their daily activities. Additional reporting by Chris Vallance and Liv McMahon highlights the widespread impact of the outage on various sectors.
