A massive Microsoft outage on Wednesday disrupted essential online services worldwide. Heathrow Airport, NatWest, and Minecraft were among the platforms taken offline for several hours before engineers restored access later in the evening. Millions of users faced interruptions to banking, work, and entertainment services.
Thousands of users report outages
Outage tracker Downdetector logged thousands of complaints from people unable to access websites, send emails, or log into accounts. Many faced frozen pages, stalled transactions, and unresponsive apps.
Microsoft confirmed that users of Microsoft 365 experienced significant delays, especially with Outlook. By 21:00 GMT, most affected websites were back online after engineers rolled back a faulty software update.
Azure cloud disruption ripples globally
Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which supports much of the global internet, reported “service degradation” around 16:00 GMT. The company said “DNS issues” caused the outage—the same technical fault behind last week’s Amazon Web Services failure.
Amazon confirmed that its systems remained unaffected.
In the UK, Asda, M&S, and O2 websites went down. In the US, Starbucks and Kroger customers also experienced temporary outages.
Businesses scramble to maintain services
Microsoft said corporate users of Microsoft 365 were among the hardest hit. Some of its own web pages displayed the message: “Uh oh! Something went wrong with the previous request.”
With its service status page unavailable, Microsoft posted live updates on X to keep users informed.
NatWest reported brief website downtime but confirmed mobile banking, chat, and phone services remained operational.
Consumer group urges companies to compensate customers
Consumer watchdog Which? said businesses must communicate clearly and support affected customers. “Customers should keep evidence of failed or delayed payments in case they need to make a claim,” said Which? legal expert Lisa Webb. She advised anyone impacted to contact providers and request late fee waivers.
Scottish Parliament suspends business
The Scottish Parliament halted proceedings after its online voting system failed. Lawmakers postponed a debate on a land reform bill designed to allow government intervention in private land sales and the breakup of large estates.
A senior parliamentary source said the disruption appeared connected to Microsoft’s global outage.
Experts warn of risks from dependence on few cloud giants
The full scale of the outage remains unclear, though Microsoft Azure controls roughly 20% of the global cloud market. Microsoft said the incident was caused by “an inadvertent configuration change,” an internal adjustment with unintended consequences.
Dr Saqib Kakvi from Royal Holloway University said reliance on Microsoft, Amazon, and Google makes the internet vulnerable. “When one provider fails, hundreds or thousands of services collapse,” he said. “We have concentrated global digital infrastructure in the hands of just a few companies.”
Outage exposes fragility of modern internet systems
Professor Gregory Falco of Cornell University said the incident highlighted how delicate cloud infrastructure has become. “Azure and AWS may seem unified, but they consist of thousands of interconnected components,” he explained.
Falco noted that some systems are managed by the providers, while others depend on third-party partners such as CrowdStrike, whose update last year disrupted millions of Microsoft systems.
He warned that even a single technical mistake can trigger worldwide outages, showing how dependent the modern internet is on a small number of cloud networks.
