The head of Jordan’s National Cyber Security Center, Mohammad Al-Samadi, said on Friday that the centre is monitoring the repercussions of a global outage affecting several Microsoft services.
He stressed the need for institutions to have alternative technological solutions and communication channels to ensure the continuity of operations and services.
Al-Samadi said reports of the outage began emerging on Thursday evening, affecting a large number of countries worldwide and disrupting several Microsoft services, including the cloud-based email platform Microsoft 365 and the Teams communication application.
He explained that preliminary information released by the company indicates that the disruption is linked to its infrastructure, causing several servers to become unresponsive and increasing pressure on them.
He said it is necessary to await the company’s technical analysis and final reports to determine the causes of the outage and the measures that will be taken to prevent a recurrence.
Al-Samadi expressed his belief that Microsoft would disclose the actual causes of the disruption, noting that technical analyses would enable specialists and engineers to understand the nature and causes of the malfunction.
Regarding the impact on Jordan, Al-Samadi said the Kingdom is in the same position as other countries that rely on Microsoft services, with the global outage affecting users across individuals, institutions, companies and various sectors.
He noted that the level of disruption may range from complete outages to intermittent interruptions, depending on the servers each institution relies on to deliver its services.
He emphasised the importance of strengthening digital resilience and preparedness for technical failures by diversifying the technology sources used by national institutions and providing alternative solutions to ensure the continuity of services and communications during unexpected outages.
