Microsoft service disruption disrupts business operations in Asia-Pacific

A large-scale disruption has occurred in Microsoft services due to server issues, affecting users in the United States and the Asia-Pacific region. According to a report by Rappler, services such as Outlook, Teams, and Copilot of this tech giant were disrupted on Friday, 13 November, during Asia-Pacific business hours. This disruption spread to the Asia-Pacific region after affecting thousands of users in the United States.

This technical glitch has impacted government agencies in Australia, Japan, and the United States, as well as companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. This is the second major disruption in Microsoft 365 services this year, raising concerns that corporate customers may question Microsoft's reliability. According to an update provided by Microsoft, the company has made repairs to the affected servers, but continuous improvement has not been observed. However, the company noted that services are being partially restored in the regions where repairs were made.

The company stated on the X platform that they are reviewing what further steps can be taken to improve the stability of the entire infrastructure. According to data from Downdetector, more than 18,000 reports of Outlook issues were received in the United States at 11:30 PM. Additionally, disruptions in various Microsoft services were observed in the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Australia, and Japan, on Friday local time. On Thursday, reports of Outlook issues in the United States exceeded 1,30,000, indicating that this disruption lasted for approximately 12 hours.

Microsoft's service health notice stated that Microsoft 365 service features based on Exchange Online and email have been affected. Exchange Online is the company's cloud-based messaging platform that provides email, calendar, contacts, and tasks. Services that do not depend on Exchange Online remained operational. The company further added that they are not aware of any malicious activity regarding this disruption.

Australian Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke provided information in a press conference, stating that Microsoft believes this is not a cyberattack. According to Burke, the situation Microsoft is facing could be similar to the CrowdStrike case, where a flaw in an update caused problems. He further stated that the impact has primarily fallen on email systems. Australia's intelligence agency and federal police were also affected during this disruption.

The US House of Representatives stated that their users have been affected by this disruption and their engineers are working alongside Microsoft. Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki reported that this disruption is affecting the infrastructure of government information systems. American AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic stated that they faced issues with Microsoft connectors. Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air also reported that their email support services were affected. Taiwan's security firms, life insurance companies, and investment trust companies also experienced disruptions in fund management.

Microsoft is a multinational technology company operating in the fields of software, services, and cloud computing. Its services include important services such as the Windows operating system, Microsoft 365, and Azure Cloud.