Microsoft 365 Alert – Service Degradation – Microsoft Defender XDR – Users may be unable to view Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) email messages in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 quarantine – RESOLVED

11/03/2026 09:05:00 AM

NHSmail Reference: INC46770275

Microsoft Reference: DZ1247911

Issue Status: RESOLVED

Issue Description: Users may be unable to view Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) email messages in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 quarantine.

More info: Users and admins may see no results when searching for ZAP email messages or affected recipients of the ZAP email messages that were moved to quarantine.
As a workaround, admins can view the ZAP email messages in Threat Explorer, but won’t be able to download or release the messages from quarantine.

Final Update: 01/04/2026 08:50:00 AM –Microsoft has completed deploying their solution to return the permissions needed to allow admins to view ZAP email messages and recipients on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, at 12:00 AM UTC. After an extended period of monitoring, they can confirm that this issue is fully resolved.

Scope of impact: Your organization may be affected by this event, and any user trying to view or download ZAP email messages in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 quarantine may be impacted. This information may be updated as our investigation continues.

Root cause: Specific permissions required to complete the process for admins to view ZAP email messages within quarantine aren’t available due to a recent code change, resulting in impact.

Next Steps: To help prevent similar impacts in the future, Microsoft are further reviewing our testing and validation processes prior to deployment of code changes.