Microsoft users worldwide, including major banks and airlines, experienced significant outages following an announcement by the tech giant that it was gradually resolving an issue impacting Microsoft 365 apps and services.
While the precise cause and extent of the outage remain unclear, Microsoft indicated in posts on X that improvements were underway. However, escalating outages continued to be reported globally.
The website DownDetector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, noted increasing disruptions in services at Visa, ADT Security, Amazon and airlines like American Airlines and Delta.
In Australia, news outlets reported widespread disruptions affecting airlines, telecommunications providers, banks and media broadcasters, all of which lost access to computer systems. Several banks in New Zealand also reported being offline.
Microsoft 365 posted on X that they were “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion,” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.” The company did not provide further details about the cause of the outage or respond to requests for comment.
Australian services affected included banks such as NAB, Commonwealth, and Bendigo, airlines like Virgin Australia and Qantas, and internet and phone providers including Telstra.
An X user shared a screenshot of an alert from Crowdstrike, stating the company was aware of “reports of crashes on Windows hosts” related to its Falcon Sensor platform. This alert was posted on a password-protected Crowdstrike site and could not be independently verified. Crowdstrike did not respond to a request for comment.
