A worldwide Microsoft 365 outage disrupted government, health services and schools in Portugal on Friday, November 13. The problems affected services including Outlook and Teams, with Microsoft reporting gradual progress in its recovery efforts.
Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) confirmed that the disruption was affecting bodies under the ministry. It said it was monitoring the situation and coordinating with Microsoft to restore services, but did not specify which health services were affected, Euronews reported.
The Portuguese government also reported problems with IT tools used in daily work. Its secretary-general said the normal functioning of public bodies was being maintained through secure alternatives. A government source told SIC Notícias that an internal network remained available, while ministers and their offices were using messaging apps including WhatsApp and Signal.
Schools reported difficulty communicating with families and students. Filinto Lima, president of the Association of Directors of Grouped and Public Schools, said institutional email and Teams were inaccessible to some users. Teachers use the platform to post homework and assignments, he told Renascença.
Microsoft reports partial recovery
In an update at 12:10, Microsoft said it was seeing “encouraging progress” and that email delivery was improving across a growing portion of the affected infrastructure. The company warned that some users could still experience intermittent problems as recovery work continued. The Associated Press also reported progress without a full restoration at that point.
Microsoft said it had no evidence that the outage was caused by malicious activity. It had not provided a timeframe for restoring the affected infrastructure.
Clayton Ward