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by Jane Davenport
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — After a widespread Microsoft outage disrupted work and communication for hundreds of millions of people, business was slowly returning to normal today as the company apologized for the international service interruption.
The outage affected key Microsoft services, including Outlook email and Teams, highlighting how dependent many people and businesses have become on the company’s technology.
Hayim Mizrachi, CEO of MDL Group, said the disruption sparked a range of reactions as employees realized their Microsoft applications were not working.
“Like there’s the stages of grief, there’s the stages of a Microsoft outage. It started with panic and anxiety, and it went to maybe concern, and then it went to relief,” Mizrachi said.
Mizrachi said the outage also forced people to rethink how they use their time when their inbox and usual tools are unavailable.
“Kind of think about how much time you spend in your inbox day to day and if things aren’t coming in you feel not productive, but there’s so many other things you can do and that we did and started sharing with each other,” he said.
Mizrachi said his office adapted by shifting to other methods to complete work during the disruption. He also said he prepared messages in advance, expecting service to be restored.
“I also loaded up a bunch of emails knowing this would eventually be restored, and they would eventually go back, so this morning, when I booted up my computer, several dozen of my closest friends got a message from me that I drafted and hit send last night,” Mizrachi said.
He said the office also tried to keep things light during the outage.
“We made a TikTok video about the outage yesterday, having a little fun and spending a few minutes doing that,” Mizrachi said.
Microsoft posted on X at 8:40 Friday morning that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack or artificial intelligence-related issue. “This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI/agents. The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change,” the company said.
Cybersecurity expert Mack Jackson said the outage underscored the need for organizations to practice how they will operate when technology fails.
“We are suggesting that companies must have a routine practices; they must go through drills,” Jackson said.
Jackson said he was in Houston conducting cybersecurity awareness training for emergency managers from around the country when the outage began, and some initially thought it was part of the exercise.
“And all the emergency managers thought, ‘oh wow this is a part of the simulation’ and we’re looking around at each other, and we thought ‘wow no this is actually happening,’” Jackson said.
Jackson said disruptions like the Microsoft outage are why he urges businesses, government organizations and individuals to prepare backup options for operations, communications and services.
“We all heard of a plan B. Well, we must have a plan B and a plan C just in case something were to happen. If that 3rd party goes out of business, so does your business,” Jackson said.
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