Microsoft outage affects over 5,500 Australian users
Key points
- Over 5,500 Australian users, including federal police and intelligence agencies, lost access to Microsoft 365 services during a global outage.
- Microsoft shares closed up 0.36% at US$523 in New York trading prior to the Friday morning Australian disruption.
- Microsoft stated it is rerouting user traffic away from affected servers to restore Exchange Online and Outlook email services.
A global software outage at Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) disrupted Outlook email, Teams, and Copilot services for more than 5,500 Australian users on Nov. 13.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke stated that Microsoft indicated an update had "gone awry", contrasting the incident with a cyberattack.
“We are aware and investigating reports of users experiencing issues with Microsoft 365 services, primarily issues with Exchange Online. We appreciate our customer’s patience while we work to restore services as soon as possible,” said a Microsoft spokesman.
The service disruption affected Australian schools, businesses, the Australian Federal Police, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Microsoft stated it is working to route user traffic away from malfunctioning servers to restore normal access across affected regions.
Following the announcement, the Microsoft share price was up at US$523.00.
Microsoft operates a global cloud and software business centred on Microsoft 365, Azure cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence tools like Copilot.
In recent years, the company has expanded its cloud data centre capacity, integrated Copilot across its enterprise software suite, and managed previous global service disruptions in 2020, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
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