Infrastructure is often thought of as the large tangible objects that we physically interact with, but the recent global Microsoft outage has reminded us that digital infrastructure is not only important to the global workforce but is usually taken for granted.

As the saying goes, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. This Friday the 13th, people woke to the news that their Microsoft 365 applications were not working, including Outlook and Teams, rendering work an impossibility for some. Now that could be “good news” for some, but prolonged outages have an adverse effect on the economy and are just “really annoying.” It is also a little scary (see Friday the 13th) to be reminded of how fragile our working environments are.

The outage is currently impacting 74 countries, and institutions such as banks, schools, and hospitals have reported major productivity stalls. Microsoft has stated through various posts on X (formerly Twitter) that the outage was caused by “an elevated load” and an overwhelmed core process on its servers, which in turn caused affected machines to stop responding.

Microsoft has confirmed the incident is not caused by a cybersecurity breach. This has also had a knock-on effect on other major digital platforms such as OpenAI and other AI companies, as reported by The Citizen.

Downdetector, a website where users report problems with apps, services, and other digital infrastructure, exploded, with 130000 compliant logs at its peak.

Microsoft is currently working to fix this issue and has apologised for the disruption and said it would provide further information once its investigation has progressed. It has also indicated that a fuller post-incident report will detail the root cause and measures to prevent a recurrence.