Microsoft 365 outage continues on Friday in Europe and Microsoft says it sees no malicious activity

The Microsoft 365 outage that began on Thursday was still affecting users in Europe on Friday, November 13, according to live coverage by France 24 and CNN. France 24, drawing on AFP, AP and Reuters, puts the number of affected countries and territories at 74 according to the tracking service Downdetector, and CNN reports that as Europe woke up on Friday the outage remained widespread.

Microsoft said it was not aware of "any malicious activity" causing the incident, according to France 24, and CNN adds that a company executive confirmed the disruption was not the result of a security breach. At around 09:44 Paris time, the company said on X that it was seeing improvements in service stability and capacity following its latest traffic optimisation measures and that it was extending them across all affected regions.

In the United Kingdom, several police forces, including Hertfordshire, South Wales and Dyfed-Powys, asked the public to report crimes by phone because the outage was affecting online reporting, according to France 24. CNN reports that some government services in Japan switched to paper documents, that courts in the Philippines suffered delays and that New Zealand's foreign ministry warned of problems receiving email at all its embassies, a detail also reported by France 24.

According to CNN, several banks warned customers about possible scams and phishing attempts exploiting the disruption. In the latest update consulted, Microsoft had not given a time for full restoration or detailed the underlying cause.