A worldwide Microsoft outage on Wednesday knocked out major websites including Heathrow, NatWest, and Minecraft. The disruption lasted several hours and affected millions of users before systems slowly came back online later in the evening.
Thousands face website failures around the world
Outage tracker Downdetector recorded thousands of reports from users unable to access key websites. Pages loaded slowly, emails stalled, and online platforms froze as the failure spread across continents.
Microsoft said users of Microsoft 365 experienced long delays in Outlook and other tools. By 21:00 GMT, the company confirmed that most affected websites were back online after it rolled back a faulty update.
Azure cloud breakdown shakes the internet
Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, which supports vast parts of the global internet, suffered “degraded performance” from 16:00 GMT. The company linked the problem to “DNS issues,” the same fault that recently triggered a large Amazon Web Services outage.
Amazon confirmed that its systems operated normally during the incident.
In Britain, websites for Asda, M&S, and O2 were hit. In the United States, Starbucks and Kroger customers also reported connection problems.
Businesses and users hit by service collapse
Microsoft said business customers using Microsoft 365 faced the biggest disruptions. Some of its web pages displayed a message reading, “Uh oh! Something went wrong with the previous request.”
The company posted real-time updates on X after users reported they couldn’t reach the official service status page.
NatWest said its main website went down briefly, but mobile banking, web chat, and phone services continued without interruption.
Consumer group demands accountability
The consumer organisation Which? reminded companies of their responsibility to communicate clearly and support affected users. “Customers should keep proof of failed or delayed payments in case they need to make a claim,” said Which? expert Lisa Webb. She advised anyone worried about missed bills to contact providers directly and ask for any charges to be waived.
Scottish Parliament forced to suspend business
In Scotland, parliamentary proceedings were halted after an outage disabled the online voting system. The delay postponed a debate on a land reform bill designed to let the government intervene in private sales and break up large estates.
A senior parliamentary source said the failure was believed to be connected to Microsoft’s global outage.
Dependence on tech giants exposes digital weakness
Analysts say the full impact of the outage remains unclear, though Microsoft Azure controls about 20% of the world’s cloud market. The company said the issue came from “an inadvertent configuration change,” meaning a system setting was altered with unintended consequences.
Dr Saqib Kakvi from Royal Holloway University warned that heavy reliance on a few cloud providers increases the risk of mass disruption. “When Microsoft, Amazon, or Google experience an outage, thousands of services are affected,” he said. He added that the push to consolidate online infrastructure makes the entire system more fragile.
Experts say the internet remains alarmingly fragile
Cornell University professor Gregory Falco said the outage exposed deep flaws in digital infrastructure. “Azure and AWS appear unified, but they consist of thousands of tiny interconnected systems,” he explained. Some are managed by the providers, while others depend on third parties like CrowdStrike, whose software update last year disrupted millions of Microsoft systems.
Falco warned that one small technical change can cause global failures, showing just how delicate the modern internet remains.
