Microsoft outage hits customers’ email accounts

Microsoft users have been hit with a new outage on Monday that left many unable to access email or certain functions in the company’s collaborative messaging software.
Reports surged online of problems from users all over Europe, with some reporting problems access the web version of Microsoft’s email. Visitors to Outlook.com said they were encountering an error page saying the website was taking too long to respond.
“We’re investigating an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or functionality within Microsoft Teams calendar,” the company posted on its X account, directing users to a note in its admin centre.
That note warned users may be unable to access online mailboxes through Outlook on the web, desktop and Exchange ActiveSync, and could also have difficult in accessing or modifying calendars in Microsoft Teams, including creating or joining meetings.
The number of reports on DownDetector, which tracks outages in tech services worldwide, surged around 9am, but the impact seemed relatively limited compared to other issues in recent months.
Microsoft’s software is used by millions of customers worldwide, which means any interruption in services can have a widespread impact.
In July, an update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crashed its clients’ Windows computers, grounding flights and causing chaos for businesses as they struggled to regain access to systems.
Shortly afterwards, its Azure cloud service was affected by a distributed-denial-of-service cyberattack, triggering an outage of cloud applications caused by an error in Microsoft’s automated protection mechanisms that worsened the impact.