A massive Microsoft outage on Wednesday caused major disruption across the internet. Websites for Heathrow Airport, NatWest, and Minecraft went offline for hours before engineers restored access later in the evening. Millions of users experienced interruptions to banking, work, and entertainment services.
Thousands report online failures globally
Outage tracker Downdetector logged thousands of reports from users who could not access websites, send emails, or log into accounts. Many faced frozen pages, stalled transactions, and unresponsive platforms.
Microsoft confirmed that users of Microsoft 365 experienced significant delays, particularly with Outlook. By 21:00 GMT, most affected websites were back online after engineers rolled back a problematic software update.
Azure cloud issues ripple across the web
Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, which supports a large portion of the internet, reported “service degradation” around 16:00 GMT. The company cited “DNS issues” as the cause—the same technical problem behind last week’s Amazon Web Services outage.
Amazon confirmed its systems remained fully operational.
In the UK, Asda, M&S, and O2 websites were affected. In the US, Starbucks and Kroger users also reported temporary outages.
Businesses struggle to maintain operations
Microsoft said many corporate clients using Microsoft 365 were among the hardest hit. Some of its own web pages displayed the error 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 that mobile banking, chat, and phone services remained fully operational.
Consumer group calls for support and transparency
Consumer organisation Which? urged companies to provide clear communication and compensate 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 waivers for late fees.
Scottish Parliament halts activity due to outage
In Scotland, parliamentary proceedings were suspended after its online voting system failed. The outage delayed a debate on land reform legislation designed to allow government intervention in private land sales and the breakup of large estates.
A senior parliamentary source said the disruption appeared linked to Microsoft’s global failure.
Experts warn of overreliance on few cloud providers
The full impact of the outage remains unclear, though Microsoft Azure controls around 20% of the global cloud market. Microsoft said the issue resulted from “an inadvertent configuration change,” an internal adjustment with unintended consequences.
Dr Saqib Kakvi from Royal Holloway University warned that dependence on Microsoft, Amazon, and Google increases vulnerability. “When one fails, hundreds or thousands of services collapse,” he said. “The digital world relies heavily on just a few providers.”
Incident exposes fragility of digital systems
Professor Gregory Falco of Cornell University said the outage highlighted the delicate nature of modern cloud infrastructure. “Azure and AWS may appear unified, but they are composed of thousands of interconnected components,” he explained.
Falco noted that some systems are managed directly by providers, while others depend on third parties like CrowdStrike, whose update last year disrupted millions of Microsoft systems.
He warned that a single technical error can trigger global outages, showing how dependent the modern internet is on a handful of cloud networks.
