Global Microsoft outage costs billions as 74 countries face disruption

A global Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook and other services across 74 countries for 18 hours, with recovery beginning Friday. The company attributed the failure to a network capacity issue, not a cyberattack, and has not disclosed financial impacts. The outage affected Office 365 tools including Teams, Copilot, and OneDrive, impacting schools, hospitals, and stock market operations. Risk firm Kovrr preliminarily estimates at least $16 billion in global productivity losses, with insured losses potentially ranging from $300 million to $1.4 billion. Microsoft apologized and is gradually restoring services while limiting traffic to prevent further failures. The incident highlights corporate dependence on interconnected cloud systems, prompting discussions about diversifying technology suppliers and maintaining independent backup channels.