What Happened on 12th November 2026?
It’s been another busy week across the technology industry! On Thursday 12th November, Microsoft experienced a major global service outage, affecting businesses and individuals across the world.
The disruption affected several widely used Microsoft services, leaving many users unable to access their emails, communicate with colleagues or use essential business applications.
Here’s what happened and what you need to know.
What happened?
Microsoft experienced significant problems with its underlying server infrastructure, resulting in widespread disruption to its Microsoft 365 services.
The outage affected multiple services, including:
- Microsoft Outlook & Exchange Online – Users experienced problems accessing mailboxes and sending or receiving emails
- Microsoft Teams – Connectivity issues disrupted meetings and business communications
- OneDrive – Some users experienced difficulties accessing cloud-stored files
- SharePoint Online – Access to collaborative documents and sites was affected
- Microsoft Copilot – Microsoft’s AI-powered services also experienced disruption
The problems were initially reported in the US before spreading across multiple regions worldwide. Thousands of businesses and organisations were affected, with the disruption continuing into Friday 13th November (how fitting!).
What caused the outage?
Microsoft attributed the incident to problems with its server infrastructure, although at this time the service still isn’t fully restored – So there’s no Root-Cause Analysis just yet!
A number of servers unexpectedly became unavailable, contributing to increased workloads and connectivity problems across its systems.
Microsoft engineers worked to redistribute traffic, restart affected servers and restore services. However, initial recovery attempts did not work as expected, meaning the disruption lasted considerably longer than anticipated.
Microsoft has stated that it is not aware of any malicious activity causing the incident, with no indication that the outage was the result of a cyberattack.
What is Microsoft doing?
Microsoft has been working to stabilise its infrastructure and gradually restore affected services.
By Friday 13th November, the company was reporting early signs of improvement, although service capacity had not yet returned to normal and recovery efforts were ongoing.
Users experiencing problems were advised to monitor Microsoft’s official service status updates.
What does this mean for your business?
For many businesses, Microsoft 365 is at the heart of their daily operations. From emails and calendars to document storage and team communications, an interruption can have a significant knock-on effect.
Although incidents like this are outside the control of individual businesses and their IT providers, they highlight the importance of having appropriate business continuity arrangements in place.
It’s worth considering whether your business has alternative communication methods, suitable data backups and contingency plans should essential cloud services become unavailable. Bring back the carrier pigeon!
If your Microsoft services are currently impacted, you can check Microsoft’s Service Status along with resolution progress here.
We’re here to help
At Gambit Nash, we understand how important reliable technology is to keeping your business running smoothly.
While global outages like this cannot always be prevented, having the right hosting, email, security and IT support arrangements can help minimise disruption and keep your business better prepared.
If you have concerns about your IT infrastructure, hosting or email arrangements, get in touch with the Gambit Nash team. We’re always happy to help.
Stay connected, stay secure and stay prepared.