Microsoft outage disrupts NHS, police and schools globally

Microsoft is reporting early signs of stabilisation after a major global outage that severely disrupted access to key services including Outlook, Teams, Copilot AI and Microsoft 365 since late Thursday, affecting government departments, banks, police, health services and courts worldwide. The UK Government confirmed contingency plans are in place, with police urging the public to call 101 or 999 for urgent reports. Downdetector recorded user reports from 74 countries at its peak, including over 130,000 Outlook issues in the US alone, with disruptions continuing in Europe and Asia on Friday. Microsoft executive vice-president Charles Lamanna confirmed the incident does not appear to be a cyber attack or malicious activity. The company has extended the email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages and committed to publishing a full post-incident report once mitigation is complete.