Updated

Microsoft has apologised for a technical failure that caused an outage lasting more than 22 hours and disrupted Microsoft 365 services such as Outlook. The BBC reported that routine automated checks took some servers offline, overloading the remaining ones with traffic, and that recovery took nearly a full day as engineers gradually restored services. Around 430 million people use Microsoft 365, and issues were reported in more than 70 countries, knocking out email for the US House of Representatives and Australian intelligence agencies and disrupting court systems in Singapore and airline support desks in India. Microsoft said the failure was not a cyber-attack. Flora Hamilton, executive director of the Small Business Charter, said the outage was a "stark reminder" of how much firms rely on digital systems, noting that email is fundamental for small and medium-sized enterprises. Walter Pasquarelli, an AI strategist, said the outage had put governments' and businesses' dependence in plain sight, and that AI assistants plugged into email may spread such failures further. Gergely Orosz, a former software engineer, said the slow recovery was unusual and pointed to reliance on a few large US corporations. A Microsoft spokesperson said the gradual restoration, given the scale of demand, helped ensure a stable restoration. Microsoft said it is reviewing what went wrong to prevent a repeat.