By W. G. S. D. Wijesinghe, Jadetimes News
Microsoft has issued an apology following a widespread outage that affected numerous services, including Outlook email and the popular game Minecraft. Downdetector reported a surge in user complaints on Tuesday afternoon, highlighting significant issues across the company’s product range.
This outage follows a major global IT disruption less than two weeks ago, which rendered over eight million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible due to a problematic software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Microsoft has announced that a fix has been implemented and is showing signs of improvement. The company is closely monitoring the situation to ensure a full recovery.
Prior to the latest outage, Microsoft had been investigating global connectivity issues affecting its services. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), Microsoft expressed regret for the inconvenience and assured users that its experts are working diligently to resolve the problem.
The outage occurred just hours before Microsoft was scheduled to release its latest financial reports at 22:30 BST. An alert on the company’s service status page indicated that the disruption was related to a "network infrastructure" issue impacting Microsoft Azure, the cloud platform supporting many of its services. Other affected systems included Intune and Entra.
Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert, commented on the situation, noting the irony of another major outage and questioning the resilience of Microsoft's network infrastructure. He expected the company's cloud based systems to have robust safeguards against single points of failure.
The outage also impacted other services dependent on Microsoft’s platforms, including Cambridge Water. The company reported problems with its website and services, such as MyAccount and PayNow, due to the issues with Microsoft Azure.
