Most Microsoft services in S’pore restored after outage that lasted more than 24 hours

SINGAPORE – Most e-mail services here have been restored on Nov 14, a day after a Microsoft outage that affected hundreds of thousands of users globally.

Various statutory boards and government agencies including the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, Singapore Land Authority, Singhealth and the Singapore Police Force noted in separate Facebook posts late on Nov 13 and on the morning of Nov 14 that their e-mail services are up and running.

Banks such as DBS, UOB and Maybank and have also updated on their respective Facebook pages that their e-mail services have been restored.

Reports of issues with Microsoft Outlook peaked at 1,135 at about 9.30am in Singapore on Nov 13, gradually falling to 347 at about 8.45pm on the same day.

In a media reply on Nov 13, the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) confirmed that some government systems were hit by the disruption, adding that it was working with Microsoft to restore the affected services.

The private and education sectors were also affected by the outage, with banks here reporting e-mail disruptions, though core banking operations were unaffected.

The e-mail services for Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) were also affected by the disruption.

The outage, reports of which started climbing around 5.25pm GMT on Nov 12 (1.25am on Nov 13, Singapore time) according to Ookla, is one of the longest in Microsoft’s history and the second disruption to its services in 2026, Reuters reported.

Microsoft said the outage specifically hit features tied to Exchange Online – its cloud-based e-mail and scheduling hub – leaving unconnected applications operational.

Reuters reported that Downdetector logged more than 7.4 million reports worldwide, peaking at nearly 20,000 a minute, more than 1,500 times normal levels.

Microsoft said in an update posted on X at 12.40am on Nov 14 that it saw “broad recovery and stability” across its services.

It clarified that the issue was not related to cyber or AI agents.

“The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change,” the post added.

Microsoft also said that it will provide a full post-incident report once its review is complete.

The Straits Times has contacted GovTech for more information.