Although government agencies are not required to use Microsoft products, most have opted for the company's office software. According to Taivo Tender, deputy director for technology and innovation at the State IT Center (RIT), Microsoft's services currently meet the agencies' needs, but there are plans to test alternatives in the future.

Disruptions to Microsoft services, including Outlook and Teams, began Thursday evening, affecting access to email, calendars and other tools. As of noon Friday, Microsoft had not disclosed the cause of the outages.

According to Tender, Microsoft was selected as the platform for the government's centralized workplace services when efforts began to standardize state IT services. He noted that the centralized IT service was established to improve the quality and security of government agencies' IT systems and consolidate technical expertise in one place.

86 agencies use RIT IT services

The State IT Center currently provides services to 86 institutions, although not all government agencies are covered. The transition is taking place gradually and depends on agreements reached with individual agencies.

According to Tender, Microsoft currently meets the needs of government agencies and no significant shortcomings have been identified. However, the State IT Center is monitoring trials of non-Microsoft solutions in other European countries and plans to explore alternatives in greater depth next year. The aim is to compare service costs and assess the risks of dependence on a single provider.

Entrepreneur and technology expert Taavi Kotka believes that the use of Microsoft products by government agencies is not a problem in itself. He noted that there is no blanket requirement for all government agencies to use Microsoft, as some have opted for open-source solutions.

No such thing as outage-proof service

"No one has yet managed to produce another product as good as Word and Excel," Kotka said. According to him, occasional service outages do not outweigh the benefits of good productivity tools, as there is no guarantee that alternative solutions would be free of disruptions either.

Aare Reintam, a cybersecurity expert at Cybexer Technologies, said there is currently no reason to believe the Microsoft service disruptions were caused by a cyberattack. In his assessment, the outage may have been related to server overload and the rerouting of data traffic.

Reintam explained that when some servers can no longer handle their workloads, data traffic is redirected to other servers. However, if too much traffic is concentrated in certain locations, those servers can also become overloaded. He said that in this case, a secure connection service may have become overwhelmed, making other services inaccessible as well.

Reintam added that there are currently no indications that users' personal data or passwords have been leaked or made accessible to unauthorized parties. The issue is primarily one of service availability.

State agencies dependent on tech company services

Reintam believes the incident nevertheless highlights how dependent businesses and government agencies have become on services provided by major technology companies. However, he does not consider it practical to replace the entire Microsoft ecosystem or continuously run solutions from multiple providers in parallel.

According to Reintam, switching systems would require significant financial and human resources. For a medium-sized company, this could mean hundreds of work hours, while larger companies could face thousands of hours of work.

Erik Janson, head of the national ICT infrastructure unit at the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, said the broader transition to Microsoft's cloud-based office software services began in 2022. According to Janson, functionality, efficiency, modern features and cybersecurity capabilities have been key factors in choosing Microsoft products.

Janson said one drawback of Microsoft is its licensing costs and the way they have increased over time. He added that the State IT Center has regularly assessed the risks associated with Microsoft services.

Agencies have backup systems

Janson said government agencies also have backup systems in place, although these may not offer the same functionality as the primary systems used on a daily basis.

In the longer term, he considers the development of Europe's own sovereign cloud solutions important. The European Commission has already begun working toward this goal.

Äripäev reported that disruptions to Microsoft services are also affecting court operations. Viivika Siplane, spokesperson for Harju District Court, wrote that the outages have disrupted the courts' email service.

"As a result, it is currently not possible to submit procedural documents to the courts by email," Siplane explained. "We ask that procedural documents be submitted through the public e-File system," she added.

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