A worldwide Microsoft service disruption that began on Thursday afternoon is causing significant operational challenges in Portugal, affecting government ministries, public schools, and health services. The outage has hit several Microsoft 365 tools, including Outlook, Teams, and the Copilot AI assistant, leaving many users without access to essential communication and collaboration platforms.
Government operations adapt with alternative tools
The Shared Services of the Ministry of Health (SPMS) confirmed that the global failure is impacting bodies under the Ministry of Health. In comments to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, an SPMS source said the services are monitoring the situation and "working in coordination with Microsoft, with a view to restoring the affected services as quickly as possible," though specific affected areas were not detailed.
According to SIC Notícias, several ministers in the Portuguese government have lost access to email. A government source told the broadcaster that an internal IT network, unaffected by the outage, has allowed the executive to continue its work. Ministers and their offices have turned to messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal to communicate internally.
The same source assured that, despite the disruption, the functioning of the government has not been compromised and that government activity is continuing. The government's secretary-general also issued a statement confirming that since Thursday there have been "impacts on the various IT tools that support the daily activity of the Government and the Public Administration" due to problems with Microsoft 365.
However, the statement stressed that "the normal functioning of all these bodies is guaranteed, in particular through the use of secure alternative means." The Secretariat-General of the Government (SGGOV) remains in continuous contact with Microsoft, which has confirmed that its technical teams are working to restore services across Europe, with priority given to Public Administration services.
Schools face communication breakdown
The outage has also hit Portugal's education sector. Filinto Lima, president of the Association of Directors of Grouped and Public Schools, told Renascença that the failure is affecting communication between parents, teachers, and pupils. "They cannot access institutional emails or the Teams platform. That is where teachers post homework and some assignments. We hope this situation will be resolved," he said.
This disruption comes at a time when European institutions are increasingly reliant on cloud-based services, and it highlights the fragility of such dependencies. For a broader look at the impact of this outage across the continent, see our coverage of the European-wide disruption.
Recovery underway but no timeline
Microsoft has been issuing regular updates. In an update at 12:10, the company said it was already seeing "encouraging progress in the recovery." In a statement on X, the tech giant reported that "email delivery performance was improving across a growing portion of the affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure," but warned that some users may still have "intermittent issues as recovery actions continue."
The problem appears to be related to a configuration update that is thought to have caused overload and the shutdown of some servers. Microsoft has ruled out malicious activity, saying it has no evidence that the outage originated in a cyberattack. For now, the company is not committing to a timeframe for full restoration.
As Portugal and other European countries grapple with the fallout, the incident serves as a reminder of the risks of relying on a handful of tech providers. For practical advice on how to keep working during such outages, see our guide to email alternatives. The situation also raises questions about the resilience of critical public services, a topic explored in our analysis of health system vulnerabilities.
