Websites and online platforms worldwide experienced major disruptions Tuesday after internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare went down, The Epoch Times reported.
According to the report, the outage affected several platforms, including ChatGPT, X, Google, Amazon Web Services, OpenAI, Spotify, YouTube, Verizon and Zoom. Downdetector reported widespread access failures, with some services down for several hours.
What Caused the Cloudflare Outage?
In a blog post published Tuesday, Cloudflare CEO and Co-Founder Matthew Prince explained that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack or malicious activity. Instead, a change to one of Cloudflare’s database systems’ permissions caused the database to output multiple entries into a “feature file” used by its bot management system. The file doubled in size, surpassing the software’s capacity to route traffic and resulting in network disruptions.
Which State & Local Government Agencies Experienced Disruptions?
GovTech reported that several government agencies reported temporary service interruptions due to the outage.
New Jersey Transit noted delays on its web and mobile services, while the Louisiana Department of Insurance extended registration deadlines for the Fortify Homes Program due to the outage.
Some departments in Michigan, Georgia and Vermont, along with local governments such as Montgomery County, Maryland, and Ramsey County, Minnesota, posted alerts.
What Steps Is Cloudflare Taking to Prevent Future Outages?
In an update on cloudflarestatus.com, the IT service management company stated that a fix has been implemented and that it continues to monitor the network for errors to ensure full service restoration.
In his post, Prince said Cloudflare has already initiated steps to harden its systems against future failures. The measures include strengthening the ingestion of Cloudflare-generated configuration files; enabling more global kill switches for features; preventing core dumps or other error reports from overwhelming system resources; and reviewing failure modes for error conditions across all core proxy modules.
What Does Cloudflare Do?
Cloudflare provides content delivery network services, internet security and performance optimization for websites. Its network of servers across the globe helps websites load faster and protects them from cyberattacks.
The company manages traffic for approximately 20 percent of the internet and handles trillions of daily requests, supporting businesses, government agencies and individual users.
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