Microsoft Outlook Widespread Outage Affects Thousands of Users

Microsoft confirmed a widespread outage affecting Outlook users on Monday, causing email delays and failures as well as authentication issues. The issue was related to the Exchange Online service, which is a cloud-hosted platform for business email, calendar, contacts, and tasks.

The company said it had identified an issue with an 'authentication component' and was testing a solution. Microsoft stated that the fix would be tested on a small part of the infrastructure before being rolled out more broadly if it works.

More than 5,000 users reported outages on Downdetector by 2 p.m., with others complaining about delays and failures in sending or receiving email, as well as authentication errors and mailbox failures.