Cloudflare outage plunges half the internet into chaos

Cloudflare Faces Another Major Outage, Disrupting Key Websites

Cloudflare has once again faced a significant outage on Friday, causing several major websites to go offline. Among the affected sites are Zoom, Canva, Discord, LinkedIn, Deliveroo, Substack, Shopify, Coinbase, and Vinted. This incident highlights the growing concerns about the reliability of internet infrastructure and the impact it can have on businesses and users alike.

On Reddit, users expressed their frustration with the ongoing issues. One user posted, "Here we go again, it's down!" while another commented, "Business haulted. Second time in a month. It's too much for service as crucial as this. Something needs to be done." A third user added, "Imagine how much money businesses are losing."

This is the second outage in nearly a month for Cloudflare, which powers internet requests for millions of websites. In a service update just after 9am GMT on Friday, Cloudflare stated that it was "investigating the issue." A few minutes later, it added, "A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results."

DownDetector, a site that monitors internet outages, showed more than 4,500 reports from affected UK web users just after 9am GMT. Of the customers experiencing issues, 66% said they had a problem with the server connection, 32% with the website, and 2% with domains. Interestingly, DownDetector itself was initially affected before coming back online. Ironically, a site that monitors DownDetector – downdetectorsdowndetector.com – appears to be down too.

Cloudflare had previously confirmed that it would be conducting "scheduled maintenance" at its Detroit data centre from 9am UTC. The company stated, "Traffic might be re-routed from this location, hence there is a possibility of a slight increase in latency during this maintenance window for end-users in the affected region."

Many Reddit users speculated that this maintenance was the likely cause of the chaos. Cloudflare has been contacted for more information.

Dane Knecht, Cloudflare's chief technology officer, confirmed in an X post an "issue impacting the availability of Cloudflare’s network." He added, "It was not an attack; root cause was disabling some logging to help mitigate this week’s React CVE (common vulnerabilities and exposures). Will share full details in a blog post today. Sites should be back online now, but I understand the frustration this causes and the work being."

This incident comes just over two weeks after Cloudflare experienced a massive outage, knocking numerous major websites offline. At that time, Cloudflare admitted in a blog post that its network began "experiencing significant failures to deliver core network traffic."

The Silicon Valley company is the foundation of an estimated fifth of all websites worldwide. The repeated outages have raised questions about the stability of the internet's backbone and the potential risks associated with relying on a single provider for critical services.

As the digital world becomes increasingly dependent on platforms like Cloudflare, the need for robust and reliable infrastructure is more important than ever. The recent outages serve as a reminder of the fragility of the internet and the importance of continuous improvements and transparency from service providers.