Microsoft Cloud Outage Causes Chaos Worldwide

Widespread reports of issues with Microsoft applications across the globe partially paralyzed numerous services. The issue was quickly connected with a security solution provided by CrowdStrike.

Problems with Microsoft applications had been blamed for causing chaos at airports, taking broadcasters off-air, and business disruption. Some affected companies blamed global IT problems rather than fingering Microsoft directly. Regardless, the impact was broad, with airports in the UK, Netherlands, and the US among those affected.

Various media outlets, including Sky News in the UK, were unable to broadcast live, while organizations from banks to healthcare providers reported problems on social media. Some retailers were unable to accept card payments.

The CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, George Kurtz, blamed a defective update for causing a widespread outage which led to chaos across a range of businesses using Microsoft applications. In a statement on X, Kurtz said his company was actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts, adding that was not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, and isolated, and a fix has been deployed.

Microsoft first reported issues with users accessing apps and services on its Microsoft 365 help page on Thursday evening and posted numerous updates in the following hours stating the situation was being resolved. Yesterday morning the company claimed was continuing to see an improvement in service availability across multiple Microsoft 365 apps and services.