Global Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook and Teams, company blames technical fault
A Microsoft service outage that from Thursday 12 November 2026 disrupted Outlook, Teams and other tools was reported in 74 countries, according to the Downdetector monitoring site. Microsoft said the cause was a technical fault, not a cyber attack.
Author: Thames Compass editorial teamPublished: 2 min read
Contents
The global Microsoft service outage began on Thursday 12 November 2026. The most noticeable problems involved Outlook email, Teams and SharePoint Online, as well as Microsoft Copilot 365. According to the Downdetector site, reports appeared in 74 countries and territories within about an hour.
What Microsoft explained
According to the BBC, the company apologised for the disruption. In a statement, Microsoft said the cause was a technical fault that arose during an earlier upgrade to network bandwidth and surfaced after a recent network change. The company said the incident was not linked to cyber attacks or to artificial intelligence systems.
On Friday afternoon the situation began to return to normal, but in its latest update Microsoft did not give a date for full restoration of services.
Impact in the UK
Problems were reported by, among others, the health service, schools, railways and Parliament. Some pharmacies had difficulties issuing prescriptions, and many schools asked parents to call rather than email. The Bank of England said its key systems were operating normally.
Local councils, including in Walsall, Devon and Warwickshire, reported delays in answering emails and difficulties in contacting residents. Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, said the outage highlighted a lack of resilience in the UK's digital infrastructure and its dependence on a small number of providers.
Reaction in Poland
Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said the outage showed the risks of depending on global technology firms, and announced plans to expand open-source software in public administration. According to PAP, Poland's public administration was not disrupted, and its EZD document management system kept working.
What this means for you
The outage mainly affected businesses, institutions and schools. It may still have made it harder to reach an employer, a child's school, a council office or a surgery, so it is worth checking whether an organisation has published another way to get in touch. Banks and universities also warned about fraudsters posing as IT support, a scam that often appears during major outages. Unsolicited messages offering "technical help" should be treated with caution.
Sources
- Poland says Microsoft outage shows risk of reliance on global tech firms
- Awaria systemów Microsoft. Termin przywrócenia "pełnego działania" wciąż nieznany
- Cyfrowy paraliż w biurach. Microsoft wydłuża oczekiwanie na maila do 48h
- Microsoft service outage
- Microsoft outage 'stark reminder' of how much we rely on tech
This article was prepared automatically by AI from the listed sources and published without prior editorial review. Spotted a mistake? Use the “Report an error in this article” button.
Photos
- Cover: „desk, laptop, notebook, pen, workspace”, author: StartupStockPhotos, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
- Photo 1: „electrical, data center, complete sets of cabinet, data center, data center”, author: Akela999, licence Pixabay Content License; cropped or resized.
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