A sweeping Microsoft failure on Wednesday disrupted vital online services worldwide. Websites for Heathrow Airport, NatWest, and Minecraft went offline for hours, leaving users stranded until engineers managed to restore access later that evening. Millions of people faced unexpected downtime as the outage rippled across continents.
Mass reports of system failures worldwide
Outage tracking site Downdetector logged thousands of complaints from users unable to access websites or complete online actions. Many experienced frozen pages, failed payments, and unresponsive email systems.
Microsoft confirmed delays for Microsoft 365 users, especially in Outlook. By 21:00 GMT, most websites had been restored after the company rolled back a problematic update that triggered the disruption.
Azure’s breakdown sends shockwaves through the internet
Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform—one of the foundations of global internet infrastructure—reported “service degradation” around 16:00 GMT. The company blamed “DNS issues,” the same problem behind a major Amazon Web Services outage a week earlier.
Amazon said its own network remained unaffected.
In the UK, Asda, M&S, and O2 websites went offline. In the US, Starbucks and Kroger customers also struggled to access online services.
Businesses battle to stay connected
Microsoft said many enterprise users on Microsoft 365 were among those hit hardest. Some company pages displayed the error message, “Uh oh! Something went wrong with the previous request.”
With its official service status page down, Microsoft resorted to posting live updates on X to communicate with users.
NatWest confirmed temporary web issues but said mobile banking, chat, and phone lines stayed operational.
Consumer advocates call for compensation
Consumer group Which? said companies must take responsibility for keeping customers informed and supported. “Customers should keep evidence of failed or delayed payments in case they need to make a claim,” advised Which? expert Lisa Webb. She urged anyone affected to contact providers and ask for fees to be waived.
Scottish Parliament brought to a standstill
The Scottish Parliament suspended its business after its online voting system failed during the outage. Lawmakers had to postpone a debate on a major land reform bill aimed at allowing government intervention in private sales and breaking up large estates.
A senior parliamentary source said the disruption was likely connected to Microsoft’s outage.
Reliance on big tech makes web vulnerable
Experts said the full extent of the outage remains unclear, though Microsoft Azure controls about 20% of the global cloud market. The company later confirmed the issue stemmed from “an inadvertent configuration change,” describing it as an internal system error with unforeseen consequences.
Dr Saqib Kakvi from Royal Holloway University warned that depending on a few massive providers like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google makes the internet fragile. “When one of them fails, hundreds or thousands of services fail too,” he said. “We’ve built a digital world balanced on just three giants.”
A warning sign for the world’s digital future
Professor Gregory Falco of Cornell University said the outage exposed how delicate modern online systems have become. “Platforms like Azure or AWS appear unified, but they’re actually built from thousands of small interconnected components,” he said.
Falco noted that while some parts are managed by the cloud providers themselves, others rely on external partners such as CrowdStrike. Last year, a faulty CrowdStrike update caused massive disruption for Microsoft users.
He warned that one small error in this tangled network can trigger worldwide chaos—showing just how fragile the digital infrastructure truly is.
