Microsoft outage explained: Tech expert tells why you lost access to your email and Teams
A tech expert explains that a global Microsoft outage was caused by a routine server health check that triggered a cascading failure. The incident disrupted essential services across New Zealand, including visa processing and court operations, before being resolved.
Why it matters
The outage highlights the fragility of global cloud infrastructure and the significant real-world impact when centralized digital services fail.
A health check gone wrong that led to Microsoft servers going down like dominoes and then a laborious process to bring services back online – that’s an expert’s explanation for the global tech outage that crippled Kiwi businesses and government agencies.
The outage reportedly hit Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories yesterday, according to tracker Downdetector.
New Zealand’s visa processing was affected , settlements of house sales stalled, court appearances were thrown out of whack and local offices were left without email and access to Teams.
Microsoft was able to resume most services in New Zealand by this morning, with tech expert Paul Stenhouse telling Newstalk ZB the company had ruled out malicious action or a cyber attack.
Instead, the “latest thinking” based on what information has been released publicly suggested a routine health check on a Microsoft server triggered the incident, Stenhouse said.
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