Microsoft services recover in 74 countries after 18-hour global outage

Microsoft services are recovering across 74 countries after a global outage lasting nearly 18 hours disrupted businesses, schools, and airlines, with Outlook, Teams, and Copilot affected. The outage was not a cyberattack but was caused by overwhelmed servers failing to process secure connection requests. Microsoft 365 Status reported recovery progress in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, though some users still face intermittent access issues. Major Indian carriers issued passenger advisories due to airline disruptions. Downdetector showed Outlook complaints peaked at 138,058, and the outage also affected AI service connectors used by OpenAI and Anthropic.