California (Web Desk): US technology company Microsoft has announced that efforts to restore its office software services are underway. However, as the global outage continued for a second day, business activities, online crime reporting to police, court proceedings and several artificial intelligence systems were affected.
According to the Associated Press, various Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook email, Teams and the artificial intelligence assistant Copilot, experienced disruptions. As a result, users, businesses and government departments around the world faced difficulties accessing email and other online services. The company said that, so far, no evidence had emerged to establish that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack or any malicious activity.
In the United Kingdom, the technical problem forced the postponement of a court hearing in Manchester. After proceedings were delayed, Judge Maurice Greene sent the jury members home. He said the incident had highlighted the potential risks of the judicial system's growing dependence on technology.
Some British police departments also reported that they were unable to receive online crime reports, prompting authorities to advise citizens to contact them by telephone in urgent cases. Meanwhile, the National Pharmacy Association of the UK warned that disruption to the National Health Service's email system could delay prescriptions reaching some patients.
According to the Norwegian government, the outage affected the work of several ministries, while officials had no information about when services would be fully restored. Greece's Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitrios Papastergiou, also confirmed that government ministries using Outlook, Teams and Copilot had been affected.
Danny Lau, who is involved in the aluminium business in Hong Kong, said his company was unable to receive updated information sent by US customers through Outlook. He warned that if the disruption continued, production schedules could be affected. Operations at some banks in Hong Kong were also disrupted.
India's Air India and IndiGo airlines clarified that their flight operations continued normally. However, IndiGo faced difficulties receiving customer complaints and queries due to problems with its email support system. Air India temporarily began using an alternative email service to continue receiving messages from customers.
The Singapore government said its email services had been affected and that it was contacting Microsoft to resolve the issue. The Supreme Court of the Philippines reported that some of its judicial activities, including responding to queries through email, had also been disrupted. Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Masanao Ozaki, said the government's information technology system had also been affected, while officials had adopted alternative means of communication, including telephone services.
US industrial technology company Workhorse Group postponed a conference call regarding its quarterly financial results. Artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic also reported difficulties accessing various Microsoft 365 tools.
According to Florian Drückentainer, spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Digitalisation, the business sector in the country had been widely affected, although no major disruption had been reported at the government level.
Commenting on the situation, Professor Jeremy Singer of the Department of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow said that the disruption to email services had left many office employees in a situation similar to suddenly being given a day off.
New Zealand also temporarily suspended the processing of visa applications due to the disruption to Microsoft's global services. The country's immigration authority announced that the assessment of all visa applications would remain suspended until further notice.
According to the report, Microsoft's services were affected in 74 countries and territories by the global outage.