Major Microsoft outage disrupts Australian government services and schools
A global Microsoft 365 outage disrupted Outlook and Teams across Australia on Friday, affecting schools, courts, government agencies and parts of the health system. Reports began shortly before 5am AEST and peaked at more than 5,500 on Down Detector at 9.22am, with users unable to open or send emails and, in some cases, access online meetings. Microsoft said it had no indication of a cyberattack and suspected a server configuration change had overloaded some systems and forced them offline. By Friday afternoon, however, the company said its repair efforts were not “taking as expected”.
The disruption forced organisations to revive paper-based and telephone processes. Service NSW asked customers to postpone non-essential visits, introduced priority callbacks for urgent transactions and warned that some service-centre and call-centre functions were unavailable. The federal home affairs minister, Tony Burke, said systems used by the Australian Federal Police and Asio had also been affected, although Asio director general Mike Burgess said the impact was limited to one level of its multi-layered systems.
The Australian Medical Association reported clerical problems at some hospitals and clinics, including difficulties accessing prescribing software that relies on Microsoft email for multifactor authentication, but said patient care was unaffected. NSW schools using Schoolbytes asked parents to contact offices by phone, while courts in South Australia and Victoria reported email problems but expected scheduled hearings to continue. Coles and Woolworths stores and the National Broadband Network remained operational, although Coles’ internal email was affected. Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator warned that scammers could exploit the disruption and urged people not to open unexpected links or disclose personal information.
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