In Australia, many people dependent on Microsoft 365 reported being unable to access their inboxes, including in municipal councils, courts and schools. The federal police and Asio, the national domestic security and intelligence agency, were also affected.
The episode, described as one of the worst IT failures in years, caused widespread disruption for governments, businesses and public services worldwide.
Further information is referred under reference MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Users reported outages of Outlook, Teams and the Copilot assistant. Governments, courts, health services, businesses, airlines and banks were affected.
Downdetector, an online tracking tool, says it received reports from users in more than 70 countries and territories. The total number of people affected has not been established.
Microsoft said in January that it counted more than 450 million paid commercial subscriptions to its 365 services. About 430 million people use Microsoft 365 applications, according to the company's website.
The outage is fueling concerns in the United Kingdom about excessive dependence on a small number of technology companies. The incident paralyzed the online communications of many businesses, public administrations and individuals for more than twenty-four hours, illustrating the possible cascading effects when a single provider concentrates several platforms.