Microsoft restores services after global outage affecting 70 countries

Microsoft says its services have been fully restored after a worldwide outage affecting Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, with the underlying problem addressed by Saturday morning. The outage hit more than 70 countries, disrupting businesses, government services, and personal users, with over 430 million people affected. Microsoft apologized, attributing the issue to a network capacity upgrade, not a cyber-attack. The disruption began Thursday, affecting institutions from the Japanese government to hospitals and courts in North America, with services recovering by Friday afternoon UK time. Experts called it a stark reminder of reliance on major tech providers.