What was the impact of the Microsoft outage? - Henry McKean Reports

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SPEAKER_2 (0:15)

The Hard Shoulder with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk with Keir.

Shane Coleman (0:24)

Now, here we go again, another massive global outage. This time emails and team chats and calls, teams chats, I should say, and calls. Microsoft is gradually restoring its services to hospitals, emergency services, schools and businesses. Henry McKean has been following this story. Henry, what time did people start getting their emails at again?

Henry McKean (0:45)

Shane here in Ireland and around midday, and we've got to remember how big this issue is. It's affecting 430 million people. That's how many people today across the globe couldn't get into their teams, their emails, they had problems with banking, they had problems with verification. You have to ask yourself, Microsoft has become the backbone of our email lives, and today that backbone is in serious trouble. Even COP31 in Turkey, negotiation documents went missing.

And interesting, the language out of Microsoft, they're saying, they're seeing improvements. They're also saying there's no evidence of malicious activity, and they say it's intermittent access issues, or in other words, delayed emails or a gap in emails. So really, really frustrating for people across the country. I got to meet these workers from all walks of life, and I asked them, have they been able to get into their emails?

SPEAKER_6 (1:49)

Not at all.

Henry McKean (1:50)

Not at all?

SPEAKER_6 (1:50)

No. Nothing? Nothing doing.

Henry McKean (1:52)

So how are you communicating with your colleagues?

SPEAKER_6 (1:54)

Well, it's a good opportunity for salespeople to stop hiding behind email and get on the phone.

Henry McKean (1:59)

So you're a sales rep?

SPEAKER_6 (2:00)

Yes.

Connor Flynn (2:01)

Or executive, I should say.

Henry McKean (2:02)

And so you have to pick up the phone and call?

SPEAKER_9 (2:04)

Yep.

Henry McKean (2:04)

And say hello?

SPEAKER_9 (2:05)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_6 (2:05)

Old-fashioned developing relationships over the phone or face to face.

Henry McKean (2:10)

Do you remember that when it was paper? You remember when it was faxed? Do we need to go back to those days?

SPEAKER_6 (2:15)

I don't think we need to go back to them, but I do think we need to maintain relationships either in person or on the phone or as close as possible. Hiding behind emails does nobody any good.

Henry McKean (2:24)

Do you think we rely too heavily on one company to supply us with our emails?

SPEAKER_6 (2:29)

Yes.

Henry McKean (2:29)

You're a primary school teacher. Microsoft is everywhere. It's also in schools. But there's workarounds. Do we need to find those workarounds? Just get back to old-fashioned teaching.

SPEAKER_5 (2:38)

Old-fashioned teaching is always the best way.

We have become very reliant on smart boards and communicating through emails, et cetera. So it's a work and break.

Henry McKean (2:51)

You work in a hospital and in that hospital, obviously Microsoft is used a lot. How are they getting by?

Shane Coleman (2:58)

We cannot send or receive emails, I think.

SPEAKER_8 (3:01)

So that's pretty bad.

SPEAKER_10 (3:03)

It could be any number of reasons, to be honest. It's amazing how one outage can affect so many people all across the globe. It's mad.

Henry McKean (3:12)

It's a real global issue affecting perhaps hundreds of millions of people.

SPEAKER_8 (3:17)

Exactly.

SPEAKER_10 (3:18)

And it's the fact that it's just that one company and that one little glitch can affect so many businesses and so many people. It's just phenomenal.

Henry McKean (3:25)

How have you got through your morning? Work from home, staff, admit they have struggled.

SPEAKER_10 (3:31)

Yeah, absolutely. People in our office were very, very badly affected.

Henry McKean (3:36)

You had a meeting this morning. It affected the person on the other side.

SPEAKER_9 (3:40)

Yeah, it did affect the person on the other side. He works in islands and insurance, and they say that they have a bit of problems for that at the moment, and they're trying to fix that.

SPEAKER_2 (3:48)

It's also such a big company that you wouldn't expect something like this to happen.

SPEAKER_8 (3:51)

So, we ultimately chose, we rely on it too much, yeah.

Shane Coleman (3:55)

Okay, Henry, as you were saying earlier, Microsoft saying, this was not a hack. It was something along the lines of a patch or update gone wrong.

Henry McKean (4:06)

Yeah, exactly. And the experts are saying the same thing. They're saying, it's not a hack. It's not perhaps a rogue state. It has nothing to do with the EU summit. They're saying, Microsoft are actually saying it's an elevated load, which means basically a lot of traffic going through their systems, which just couldn't cope.