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An airport website, gaming systems and countless internet webpages have been knocked offline as internet users report outages – with many being tied back to Microsoft.
The Starbucks app, Costco and other sites connected to Microsoft’s Azure cloud portal, including Office 365, Minecraft and Xbox Live, were among the impacted websites. Some users on downdetector.com also reported outages with Amazon Web Services, though the tech giant denied those issues.
Heathrow Airport in London reported its website was down due to the outage. While Alaska Airlines wrote on X that the technical issues caused “disruption to key systems, including our websites.”
Microsoft confirmed the outage.
“We are working to address an issue affecting Azure Front Door that is impacting the availability of some services,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. “Customers should continue to check their Service Health Alerts and the latest update on this issue can be found on the Azure status page.”
After users reported Amazon Web Services being down, the company said it was “operating normally.” Earlier this month, an outage with AWS knocked countless popular websites offline.
Amid outages, how the tech industry can mitigate the risks of relying on outside cloud providers
Recent cloud outages highlight the vulnerabilities of relying so much on cloud computing – or “the cloud” as it’s often called. But there are ways to mitigate some of the risks.
Here’s a piece from Jongkil Jay Jeong, written after last week’s Amazon outage, on what can be done.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 21:50
How meme-makers are processing the Azure outage
The ongoing Microsoft Azure problems today may be causing technical issues at airports and popular websites, but that hasn’t stopped people from venting in memes.
Some riffed on the back-to-back timing of the Azure outage coming on the heels of problems last week with Amazon’s AWS, while others complained that they had access to Microsoft tech that was still functioning, forcing them to keep working when others got an unexpected break.
(X / Jisoo Kang)
(X / user @5kl)
(X / user @cyphersiren)
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 21:30
More than 180,000 outage reports filed about Azure and AWS
More than 180,000 reports of outages on Azure and AWS flooded in today on Downdetector, the crowd-sourced online monitoring service from Ookla.
An Ookla spokesperson told The Independent more than 131,000 of those reports concerned Azure, while more than 54,000 were about AWS. (Amazon says reports about an AWS outage are incorrect and the platform is functioning normally.)
Ookla emphasizes that its data is drawn from user reports, including claims on social media, and should be considered an unofficial “early warning system.”
“Another day, another major cloud outage,” company analyst Luke Kehoe wrote in a statement provided to The Independent. “Microsoft Azure has knocked many services offline worldwide, with a wide blast radius across airlines, banks and government agencies. It is the second such event this month highlighting the systemic risks of concentration and single points of logical failure, regardless of how physically hardened the infrastructure is.”
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 21:10
Cybersecurity expert warns of scams in wake of Azure outage
Scammers may try to take advantage of the ongoing Microsoft outage, according to a tech security expert.
“Tell your teams to expect potential phishing texts, calls, emails (once back up) claiming Microsoft is down because they need to “update their password, click here”, etc,” Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security, wrote on X. “Criminals love to take advantage of outages to trick. Catch them!”
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 20:50
Azure outage is latest tech trouble for Alaska Airlines after ground stop last week
Alaska Airlines has had a seriously bad week of tech problems.
Today, the company announced that the ongoing Azure outages have caused “disruption to key systems, including our websites.”
The shutdown prompted angry messages on social media from customers, including one who posted pictures of a long line at an airport check-in kiosk.
Today’s issue come less than a week after an IT outage prompted Alaska to issue a systemwide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights, causing delays and cancellations.
Here’s Rhian Lubin’s earlier report on the ground stop.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 20:37
Azure outage comes same day as optimistic Microsoft earnings report
Today’s ongoing Azure outage hit the same day Microsoft reported its quarterly earnings.
Thankfully, company executives had some good news on the latter front.
Microsoft reported $77.7 billion in revenue, beating Wall Street predictions. It also saw better-than-expected growth in its Azure business of about 40 percent.
The company notched a 24 percent increase in operating income, too.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 20:20
Microsoft blames ‘inadvertent configuration change’ for Azure issues
Microsoft has identified a culprit for the ongoing issues on its Azure cloud platform.
“We have confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change was the trigger event for this issue,” the company wrote on the Azure dashboard, noting that customers using services tied to the Azure Front Door “may have experienced latencies, timeouts, and errors.”
Microsoft says that since detecting the issue it has successfully deployed its “last known good” configuration across Azure.
“Customers may have begun to see initial signs of recovery,” the company added. “We are currently recovering nodes and routing traffic through healthy nodes, and as we make progress in this workstream, customers will continue to see improvement.”
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 20:13
Scottish Parliament suspends voting due to technical issues
It’s not just airports feeling the ripples of today’s Azure issues.
Voting was suspended Wednesday evening in the Scottish Parliament due to resulting technical issues.
“There is, I understand, a significant Microsoft outage affecting some products, and it is global, and that is preventing us from voting,” Alison Johnstone, Holyrood’s presiding officer, said of the problem, STV reports.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 19:58
Microsoft outage shuts down website of London’s Heathrow Airport
Travelers across the world are feeling the impacts of today’s Azure issues.
A significant Microsoft outage shut down the website of London’s Heathrow Airport, though the problems thus far have not caused delays or cancellations, The London Evening Standard reports.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 19:49
Vodafone users in UK feel issues from Azure outage
Customers of Vodafone, the major UK telecoms carrier, appear to also have been impacted by today’s Azure issues, Reuters reports.
One X user wrote that the company’s Voxi mobile network was having issues sending a one-time password for security purposes.
Josh Marcus29 October 2025 19:44