IT News from November 13th: According to a late-night report by Bloomberg today (the 13th), progress has been made in restoring the main software services under Microsoft. This large-scale outage caused paralysis in government agencies, financial traders, and business operations around the world.
Microsoft announced at around 9 a.m. on the 13th, New York time (Note from IT: corresponding to 10 p.m. Beijing time), that service performance had improved, with the number of backlogged emails significantly reduced and approaching normal levels. However, errors may still occur in more than 20 products and services.
As of this morning local time, users have encountered issues for the second consecutive day, such as meeting invitations not being delivered and web pages not responding. In the past, Microsoft's service disruptions rarely lasted for more than a few hours.
Since the malfunction occurred on the 12th afternoon local time, Microsoft has been releasing updates on the progress of repairs almost every hour, including measures such as troubleshooting system failures and diverting user traffic to other servers. Although there were signs of recovery several times during that period, the service condition quickly deteriorated again.
The cause of the failure has not yet been determined. Microsoft stated that a core process on some servers stopped responding completely due to excessive load, and the initial troubleshooting and repair efforts were also hindered by the servers continuing to report errors.
After the fault is resolved, Microsoft will release more details. There is no evidence to suggest that this incident involves malicious activity.
Microsoft's issues also forced some companies to postpone the release of their financial reports, with Swiss luxury goods group LVMH and American truck and bus manufacturer Workhorse Group becoming victims in this round.
The clothing group PVH, which owns brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, has announced a reorganization plan that will result in the reduction of about 4% of its global workforce. An anonymous insider stated that the company was scheduled to have "difficult talks" with some employees in Asia on the morning of the 13th local time, but a Microsoft outage prevented these talks from taking place as planned, leaving employees unsure whether they will be able to continue working there.
The fault monitoring website Downdetector has received hundreds of thousands of fault reports, involving Microsoft users from over 70 countries. In addition to email and chat services, network security software, file sharing services, and system management tools have also been affected.
In the UK, sources familiar with the matter revealed that a Microsoft outage affected communication in medical institutions, forcing the National Health Service (NHS) to postpone some medical procedures. Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London reminded patients that email services were temporarily unavailable, but that medical treatments would continue as scheduled. Several local police departments also stated that they were unable to receive crime reports over the internet.
Singapore traders, Indian securities brokers, and Tokyo government officials also encountered Microsoft service failures. Euronext issued a notice informing users of an interruption in their email communication services.
The Japanese Ministry of Finance stated that for most of the day, they were unable to receive emails. Due to a malfunction in the email system, various departments of the Japanese government had to resort to posting paper notices to inform reporters about their daily work schedules.
The Reserve Bank of Australia was also affected, with multiple departments unable to use Outlook, but critical operations continued as normal. Meanwhile, New Zealand's immigration department suspended the processing of all visa applications.
