A widespread Microsoft outage has disrupted local governments across the United States, bringing routine operations to a standstill as essential services dependent on the company’s technology stopped working.
The disruption began Thursday and spread within hours to 74 countries and territories. Customers reported losing access to email, while systems used by banks, government agencies and courts also experienced failures.
Many familiar workplace tools were affected, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, cloud storage and file-synchronization services.
In Colorado, the outage forced the Arapahoe County Detention Facility to suspend online inmate releases, including for people who had successfully posted bond.
Officials said online bond payments were being affected because the process depends on Outlook email alerts to confirm that funds had been received. Until the system was restored, inmates had to post bond in person before they could be released.
With businesses and public agencies disrupted across multiple sectors, Microsoft has been working to restore its services as quickly as possible.
By Friday morning, the company said it was seeing “encouraging recovery progress” and that traffic was being restored gradually. Some users also reported on social media that messages were beginning to reappear in their inboxes.
A major Microsoft outage has disrupted government operations across the US and thrown everyday digital services into chaos
Microsoft said preliminary testing pointed to an “elevated load” on its infrastructure as one factor behind the failure, although investigators were still working to determine the underlying cause.
The technology company said there was no indication that the incident resulted from a cyberattack or security breach. It added that a full report examining the outage would be released later.
Millions of employees have been unable to work normally during the disruption, which is already being described as potentially one of the largest technology outages ever recorded.
City and federal agencies faced limited operations for more than a day. The US House of Representatives said it had sent engineers to assist Microsoft in restoring systems used by Congress.
Local governments in several states were similarly affected. Officials in Baltimore County said employees were unable to contact their departments, while workers reported outages affecting government operations in Jacksonville, Florida, and Austin, Texas.
As employees and customers wait for full service to return, authorities have warned that scammers may exploit the confusion by targeting people desperate to regain access to their accounts.
Banks and university technology departments have cautioned users about fraudulent password-reset emails, texts requesting account verification and fake IT workers seeking passwords or security codes.
Microsoft says it is still examining the “root cause” of the outage. Pictured: CEO Satya Nadella
The outage forced Colorado’s Arapahoe County Detention Facility to halt online inmate releases, even when detainees had posted bond
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Old Dominion University in Virginia urged students and employees to be alert for unusual login requests and advised them not to repeatedly change their passwords. The university said many sign-in errors were linked to Microsoft’s service problems.
Scammers could also pose as Microsoft representatives or corporate help-desk employees, claiming they can repair Outlook if victims install software or provide remote access to their computers.
Requests for gift cards, wire transfers, cryptocurrency or payments through money-transfer apps are further warning signs that a supposed support call is fraudulent.
Microsoft says it does not make unsolicited calls about problems with a customer’s device. Its legitimate error messages also do not contain a phone number for users to call.
Anyone who receives an unexpected request should verify it with their organization’s IT department using a trusted phone number, website or other established contact method.
Security experts warn that these impersonation attempts may continue even after Microsoft’s services are fully restored.
Microsoft said early tests identified an “elevated load” on its infrastructure, disrupting access to essential workplace services for millions
Financial specialists have warned that a prolonged outage could inflict “astronomical” damage on global markets and the wider economy.
Samuel Mather-Holgate, managing director at Mather and Murray Financial, said: “This could become one of the most economically damaging technology outages in history.
“When Microsoft goes down, the world doesn’t simply lose access to email — major parts of the global economy can effectively grind to a halt.
“It is a frightening illustration of how dependent and vulnerable the modern economy has become. And the next outage could be even more severe.”
Initial reports of the failure emerged around midday Eastern Time on Thursday before spreading to more than 70 countries within a few hours.
The Americas appeared to experience some of the most extensive disruption. Microsoft first acknowledged problems affecting users trying to access their email accounts.
The company later confirmed that the incident had spread to a range of services, including Teams, OneDrive, Copilot and Microsoft 365.
The outage came only days after Outlook users were advised to update their software following the discovery that hackers were exploiting a security vulnerability capable of exposing information used for identity verification.
Microsoft has reiterated that it has found no evidence connecting the latest service failure to a cyberattack.
