Microsoft says server glitch, not job cuts, caused outage

Microsoft ↗ 0.18% has blamed a global outage of Outlook, Teams and Copilot on server failures rather than a cyberattack. Syracuse.com reported that the company also ruled out staffing as a cause. The disruption started Thursday, November 12, about three weeks after Microsoft offered buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees. That timing led some people to ask whether the company's push toward AI had weakened its operations.syracuse.com

What Microsoft says went wrong

A Microsoft 365 status update said the outage came from "failed health checks [that] may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health," Syracuse.com reported. Charles Lamanna, an executive vice president at Microsoft, wrote that there was "no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity." Earlier, Microsoft said a process that sets up secure connections on the affected servers had become overwhelmed and stopped handling requests, ABC13 reported.abc13.com+1

Fixing it took a long time. At one point Microsoft admitted its changes were "not taking as expected," according to the AP. By Friday morning, it said recovery was "progressing in phases." It also gave delayed email 48 hours before timing out while backlogs cleared.apnews.com

Australian minister Tony Burke said Microsoft had likened the problem to the 2024 CrowdStrike ↘ 2.34% outage, which a faulty update caused. "They (Microsoft) don't believe they are dealing with a cyberattack," Burke said, the AP reported.apnews.com

Global fallout

Reuters reported that the outage lasted more than 12 hours and is one of the longest in Microsoft's history. Some organizations went back to using fax machines, and one Taiwanese firm canceled a bond repurchase. Euronext, Aviva and Maersk A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S reported problems, and Workhorse Group moved its earnings call to a later date. Downdetector logged problems in 74 countries within an hour on Thursday, The National reported.thenational.scot+1

The buyout question

On October 26, Microsoft offered voluntary exit packages to staff in the US, Canada, India and the UK as part of an AI-driven efficiency push, CNBC reported. The offer covered more than a quarter of the company's workforce. Employees have until December 9 to decide, and those who accept will leave on December 31, The New York Times reported. It is not clear how many have accepted.cnbc.com+1

Some experts told The National that the timing reflects a wider risk. "It is hard to say how connected these things are in this case, but this is absolutely a trend that we should expect in the future," said Zack Korman, an AI agent security expert. "Companies are trying to rebuild legacy tech, push new tech, and cut labour costs all at the same time. That's not a recipe for stability," he told The National. He added that institutional knowledge is lost "as you get rid of the people who've built those systems."thenational.scot

Cybersecurity expert Dan Card told the paper it was "impossible to say" what caused this incident. He said it still raises concerns about "concentration of risk in a few organisations."