Microsoft apologises after thousands report new outage

Reuters

Technology giant Microsoft has apologised after thousands of people across the UK reported issues with its products, ranging from email service Outlook to the hit game Minecraft.

Downdetector, which tracks websites, showed thousands had reported problems on Tuesday afternoon.

The incident comes less than two weeks after a major global IT outage left over eight million computers using Microsoft systems inaccessible, impacting healthcare and travel, after a flawed software update by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

Microsoft said it was "investigating reports of issues connecting to Microsoft services globally".

"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience," it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

"Our experts are currently investigating the situation in order to resolve it as soon as possible."

It comes hours before Microsoft is set to announce its latest financial reports at 2230 BST.

An alert on the technology giant's service status website on Tuesday said it was looking into a "network infrastructure" issue that was impacting access to Microsoft Azure - the cloud computing platform behind many of its services.

"It seems slightly surreal that we’re experiencing another serious outage of online services from Microsoft," said computer security expert Professor Alan Woodward.

“The culprit appears to be network infrastructure but you would have hoped that with such important cloud-based systems there would not be a single point of failure.

“You’d expect Microsoft’s network infrastructure to be bomb-proof."

The outage appears to have also impacted other services which rely on Microsoft's platforms, with Cambridge Water among those affected.

"Due to worldwide issues with Microsoft Azure, a problem with our website is affecting several services including MyAccount and PayNow," it said in a post on X.

Additional reporting by Chris Vallance and Liv McMahon