A major Microsoft failure on Wednesday caused global online chaos, taking down websites including Heathrow, NatWest, and Minecraft. The outage lasted several hours and affected millions of users before normal service gradually returned later that evening.
Thousands report widespread online breakdown
Outage tracker Downdetector logged thousands of complaints from users who could not load pages or log in to accounts. Across several countries, websites slowed, froze, or crashed entirely.
Microsoft confirmed that users of Microsoft 365 suffered delays in Outlook and other services. By 21:00 GMT, the company said most affected websites were back online after it rolled back a faulty update that had triggered the issue.
Azure cloud glitch hits internet infrastructure
Microsoft’s Azure cloud network, which powers much of the global internet, experienced “service degradation” at around 16:00 GMT. The company identified the cause as “DNS issues,” the same technical problem that recently took down Amazon Web Services.
Amazon said its systems remained fully operational during the incident.
In the UK, Asda, M&S, and O2 experienced short outages. In the US, customers struggled to reach Starbucks and Kroger online platforms.
Businesses and users face widespread disruption
Microsoft said business customers using Microsoft 365 services were heavily affected. Some of its websites displayed an error message that read, “Uh oh! Something went wrong with the previous request.”
Because its service status page was down, Microsoft posted live updates on X to keep users informed.
NatWest said its website was briefly unavailable but added that mobile banking, online chat, and phone services continued to operate normally.
Consumers told to keep evidence of payment problems
The consumer group Which? said companies had a duty to inform customers and compensate those affected by the outage. “Customers should keep evidence of any failed or delayed payments in case they need to make a claim,” said Which? law expert Lisa Webb. She advised anyone worried about missed bills to contact providers and ask for late fees to be waived.
Scottish Parliament suspends work over outage
In Scotland, parliamentary business was halted when a technical issue disabled the online voting system. The outage delayed a debate on a land reform bill that would let the government intervene in private land sales and break up large estates.
A senior parliamentary source said the disruption was believed to be linked to Microsoft’s global systems failure.
Reliance on cloud giants raises security concerns
Experts said the exact impact of the outage remains unclear, but Microsoft Azure holds roughly 20% of the global cloud market. Microsoft later said an “inadvertent configuration change” had caused the breakdown, describing it as an internal system adjustment with unintended effects.
Dr Saqib Kakvi from Royal Holloway University warned that dependence on a few cloud providers creates major risks. “When Microsoft, Amazon, or Google go down, hundreds or thousands of systems can be crippled,” he said. He added that economic pressures drive most companies toward these dominant providers, leaving the internet more fragile.
Experts call modern internet dangerously fragile
Professor Gregory Falco of Cornell University said the outage exposed how delicate today’s digital infrastructure has become. “Azure and AWS may seem like single systems, but they’re actually thousands of connected components,” he explained. Some are managed by the providers, while others rely on third parties such as CrowdStrike, whose faulty update last year disrupted millions of Microsoft devices.
Falco warned that a single misstep can cause worldwide failures, showing how vulnerable and interdependent the global internet truly is.
