Australia's cybersecurity chief investigating Microsoft outage - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
A widespread outage has hit Microsoft platforms, including Outlook, with many users unable to access email accounts. (AP: Ted S. Warren/File)
Microsoft says it has begun restoring access to its email and other online services after Australians experienced outages for several hours today.
The company posted an update just after 10am AEDT saying customers could expect a "gradual recovery" as it rolls out the fixes.
"We're returning a portion of affected servers to the service, and they remain stable so far. We're also shifting traffic to alternate routes wherever possible and observing limited recovery," the company posted on its X account.
The update comes after Australian business, government agencies and other organisations reported being brought to a standstill, prompting Australia's cybersecurity chief to begin investigating the issue.
Online outage reporting service Downdetector Australia recorded more than 4,400 reports of problems with Outlook by 8:20am today.
A spokesperson for the home affairs minister said the national cyber security coordinator, Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, was aware of the outage and was looking into it.
Earlier today, Microsoft said some servers had become unresponsive and the problem may involve a component that was supposed to check whether their services were healthy.
Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness is looking into the outage. (ABC News: Peter Drought)
It said the company was investigating recent configuration changes as possible contributors to the problem.
Some Microsoft users said the Outlook problems was also restricting access to other services because they were unable to utilise two-factor authentication codes to log in.
University of Melbourne associate professor Adel Toosi said the widespread disruption was the downside of a growing reliance on a handful of major cloud service providers.
Dr Toosi said centralising services by using cloud computing providers such as Microsoft was often cheaper because of the economies of scale, but it also meant there was less redundancy if an error occurred.
While major providers typically distribute data across multiple geographical locations, Dr Toosi said they were still vulnerable to underlying flaws in the company's systems.
