Outlook ‘is down’: Tens of thousands of users report website, login and app issues
Microsoft Outlook has been hit by a major outage, leaving tens of thousands of users struggling to access their emails.
The popular email service appeared to suffer technical difficulties on Thursday, with users reporting problems accessing the website, logging into their accounts and using the app.
According to outage-tracking website Downdetector, more than 65,000 reports of problems with Outlook had been recorded by around 6.10pm.
Reports began mounting rapidly on Thursday afternoon, with more than 2,400 complaints registered by 5.50pm before the figure surged to 13,000 within eight minutes.
By shortly after 6pm, the number had climbed to more than 25,000, before soaring past 65,000 just minutes later.
The disruption appeared to be particularly widespread in the Americas, where Microsoft confirmed it was investigating problems affecting users attempting to access their email accounts.
In a statement posted on its Microsoft 365 Status account, the technology giant said: ‘We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.’
Outlook ‘is down’ according to thousands of users who have reported website, login and app issues
The problems were not limited to Outlook, with users also reporting difficulties accessing other Microsoft services, including Teams, OneDrive, Copilot and Microsoft 365.
Microsoft’s own service status checker was also reported to be unavailable as complaints continued to mount.
It comes just days after Outlook users were urged to update their software after hackers began exploiting a security flaw that can expose information used to verify their identity.
Opening a specially crafted message file in an affected version of Outlook can trigger a connection to a network location controlled by criminals.
That connection can reveal sign-in information attackers could use to impersonate victims and potentially access accounts or workplace systems.
Microsoft released a fix as part of its November 10 security updates, but affected computers remain vulnerable until the relevant patch is installed.
Users should open an Office application, such as Word, select File, then Account, and choose Update Options followed by Update Now.
In classic Outlook, the account menu may instead be called Office Account.
Because the Outlook fix is delivered through Office, checking Windows Update alone is not enough to make sure this particular problem has been addressed.
The vulnerability is already being used in real attacks, making the warning more than a theoretical concern.
NHS England’s cybersecurity alert says Microsoft has reported exploitation and that America’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has added the flaw to its catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities.
The problem involves a missing warning that would normally alert people before Outlook connects to potentially unsafe external content.
Until the update is installed, users should avoid opening unexpected attachments or message files, including those that appear to come from familiar senders.
Microsoft has been approached for comment.