Global Microsoft 365 Outage Disrupts Banks and Airlines

Microsoft users globally experienced outages on Friday, affecting banks, airlines, and other services. While Microsoft worked on rerouting impacted traffic, the exact cause remains undisclosed. Websites tracking outages reported issues at Visa, Amazon, and airlines like Delta, impacting operations in Australia and New Zealand.

Microsoft users worldwide, including banks and airlines, reported widespread outages on Friday, hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

The cause, exact nature, and scale of the outage remained unclear. Microsoft hinted at improvements in its X posts, but escalating outages were still being reported globally hours later.

The website DownDetector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT Security, Amazon, and airlines, including American Airlines and Delta.

News outlets in Australia reported disruptions across airlines, telecommunications providers, banks, and media broadcasters, losing access to computer systems. Some New Zealand banks said they were also offline.

Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact more expediently” and observed a “positive trend in service availability.” The company did not respond to a request for comment or explain the outage's cause further.

Australian outages included NAB, Commonwealth, and Bendigo banks, Virgin Australia and Qantas airlines, and internet and phone providers like Telstra.

ABC and Sky News in Australia reported sudden shutdowns of Windows-based computers, affecting their broadcasting capabilities.

An X user posted a screenshot from Crowdstrike, indicating awareness of “reports of crashes on Windows hosts” related to its Falcon Sensor platform. This alert could not be independently verified as the post was on a password-protected site. Crowdstrike did not respond to a request for comment.