Global Microsoft outage disrupts maritime communications

A global Microsoft 365 outage has disrupted email and other communications across the maritime sector, affecting shipping companies, regulators, classification societies and marine research organisations.

The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it was experiencing problems sending and receiving emails but that its emergency response services remained operational.

“We are currently experiencing problems sending and receiving emails due to the worldwide Microsoft outage,” the agency said in a notice on the UK government website. “Our search and rescue services are currently unaffected. In an emergency at the coast call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.”

Denmark’s Maersk, which suffered an unrelated cyber attack earlier in the week, warned customers that routine correspondence, notifications and updates could be delayed, while saying the problem was not specific to its own systems.

“Please note that this is a Microsoft-related issue and is not specific to Maersk or our internal systems,” the company said. “As a result, some of our usual notifications, emails, and updates may be delayed or temporarily disrupted.”

Classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR) also reported service disruption, warning of delays to survey requests and technical enquiries. It advised clients requiring a survey within 24 hours to contact its Global Technical Client Care and Planning & Scheduling managers by phone.

According to Microsoft, its outage affected Exchange Online, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Planner and other Microsoft 365 services. The messaging service Teams also experienced partial disruption, particularly to calendar and meeting functions, the company said.

Microsoft attributed the outage to an infrastructure failure rather than a cyberattack. Service advisories said multiple Microsoft servers had become unavailable, increasing the load on those that remained operational. Attempts to restore services were complicated by servers becoming unresponsive as normal traffic returned, according to reports.

The outage also impacted logistics providers and academia, among other maritime-linked organisations. APL Logistics advised customers to contact its service representatives by phone for urgent updates rather than using digital communications channels. The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) said Outlook, Teams and its internal intranet had been affected, with its information technology team monitoring the recovery.

Given its global nature and the proliferation of Microsoft product use, the outage has disrupted electronic correspondence used for voyage instructions, cargo documentation, survey requests and routine customer updates. However, the information provided by the affected organisations indicated that core vessel operations and emergency response services remained available.

No port closures or vessel delays directly attributable to the outage were known to have been reported by the time of publication.

The incident has renewed attention on the shipping industry’s reliance on cloud-based communications and services provided by a small number of technology companies.