A simple software configuration change at Microsoft sent ripples of disruption across the globe, taking down major consumer and commercial websites. The incident revealed just how deeply the modern internet relies on a single infrastructure giant.
Websites for Heathrow, NatWest, and the gaming platform Minecraft were among those temporarily disabled. Late on Wednesday, these services finally returned online after several hours of inaccessible screens.
Microsoft ultimately traced the issue back to its Azure cloud computing platform, the engine that powers a massive portion of the digital economy.
Azure and the Domino Effect
At 16:00 GMT, Microsoft Azure reported a “degradation of some services.” By 21:00 GMT, the company had restored a prior software update, allowing many of the impacted websites to become accessible again.
The fallout was extensive. In the UK, major retailers like Asda and M&S, along with mobile operator O2, reported problems. Across the Atlantic, the coffee chain Starbucks and retailer Kroger faced access issues.
Microsoft confirmed that customers using its business suite, Microsoft 365, experienced difficulties, including delays with Outlook and other essential services. The tech giant itself struggled: some pages on its own website simply returned an error notification: “Uh oh! Something went wrong with the previous request.”
The inability of some users to reach the official service status page forced Microsoft to post service updates to a thread on X.
The True Cost of Downtime
While the NatWest website was impacted, the bank maintained core services, including mobile banking, web chat, and telephone customer service, throughout the outage. However, for many businesses, the interruption was critical.
Estimates place Microsoft Azure at roughly 20% of the global cloud market. Given this reliance, how does a single “inadvertent configuration change” manage to incapacitate such a large sector of the internet?
The company itself stated the outage was “an inadvertent configuration change.” This phrasing translates to a behind-the-scenes system change executed with entirely unforeseen consequences, a chilling reminder of the fragility underpinning our digital world.