'We're at the whim of Microsoft': APS staff left in dark on major outage

Detailed summary

Ironically, staff would usually be updated about incidents via email.

These are the words of public servants caught up in the global outage of Microsoft products throwing offices around Canberra into chaos.

Thousands of Microsoft users reported they were not able to send or receive emails at about 7am on Friday, November 13.

Microsoft revealed at about 9am that a "core process ... becoming overwhelmed" had disrupted Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Copilot.

Public servants in at least five large agencies were not able to send or receive emails at about 9am.

And they hadn't received updates from their IT teams or management on how to work around the outage.

The irony was not lost on one staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"I can't access my inbox, but I don't know about the rest of the agency," they said.

Another staffer said they were enjoying the break from their usual 300 emails per day.

Staff at Services Australia, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Trade, the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water were not able to send and receive emails.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Canberra Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.