Global Microsoft 365 Outage Stemming From Technical Issues, Not Cyberattack, Says NACSA

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 13 – The major global Microsoft 365 service disruption affecting users worldwide—including in Malaysia—was likely triggered by technical or infrastructure issues rather than a cyberattack, the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) confirmed on Friday, November 13, 2026.

In an advisory posted on its official Facebook page, NACSA noted that the widespread outage impacted several core enterprise and productivity applications, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Defender XDR.

Following the assessment, NACSA advised all federal and state government agencies as well as National Critical Information Infrastructure (NCII) entities across Malaysia to immediately audit their systems and verify whether their operations were affected.

“All relevant parties are urged to ensure that cybersecurity monitoring remains uninterrupted and to stay updated on the latest developments from Microsoft,” the agency stated.

NACSA also instructed affected organisations to report any operational disruptions promptly through established national incident-reporting channels.

Global Outage Context

The advisory comes as Microsoft engineers work to stabilize server capacity and resolve a prolonged global outage—linked to a configuration update that overloaded Exchange and cloud servers—that disrupted email and workplace communication systems for government agencies and businesses across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America.

Agency Assessment, Affected Services, and Compliance Advisory

Key cybersecurity findings, impacted software suites, and agency directives include:

• Root Cause Assessment: Likely caused by internal technical or infrastructure issues rather than malicious cyberattack activity, according to NACSA.
• Affected Microsoft Applications: Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Defender XDR.
• Target Entities: All Malaysian government agencies and National Critical Information Infrastructure (NCII) operators.
• Mandatory Directives: Verify service status, maintain uninterrupted cybersecurity monitoring, track official Microsoft recovery updates, and report operational disruptions immediately via established channels.

–NMT