Microsoft users around the world flocked to social media in a panic after several of the tech giant’s major apps went down on Wednesday.
Microsoft hit by global outage: Here’s the ‘potential’ cause
Details around the outage are sketchy but according to outage tracker Downdetector, users around the world flagged problems accessing Office 365, Teams, Outlook and Xbox Live right before the start of the work day on Wednesday morning.
On Office 365, users reported issues accessing and authenticating email accounts, while on Teams, 48% reported server connection issues.
In a tweet response to the social media pandemonium, Microsoft confirmed that tech teams “are reviewing telemetry to determine the next troubleshooting steps,” after identifying a potential networking issue.
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On Microsoft 365’s admin centre, the following apps are listed as potentially affected by the global outage:
- Microsoft Teams
- Exchange Online
- Outlook
- SharePoint Online
- OneDrive for Business
- Microsoft Graph
Interestingly, the Microsoft global outage is listed as a potential service degradation, which, according to Carleton University’s IT centre, a process tech teams undertake to isolate problems in security-related incidents.
It remains unclear at this juncture if the potential networking issue is, in any way, linked to a cyber attack.
Microsoft’s latest woes come days after reports revealed the tech giant’s alleged plans to cut five per cent of its workforce, leaving thousands unemployed.
According to Sky News, “the US software giant could announce plans to cull a significant number of posts around the world within a matter of days.”
Further, sources within the tech company claimed that several engineering divisions were expected to be significantly downsized, albeit Microsoft has yet to formally address the rising speculation.
This is a developing story.
