Cloudflare โOutage Disrupts Access to Popular Websites
A โฃwidespread outage affecting Cloudflare services on Tuesday, Nov. 18, โฃleft users unable to access a range of popular websites โadn applications, including ChatGPT, Spotify, and X (formerly Twitter).โ The disruption beganโข around 9 a.m. EST and lasted for approximately anโ hour, raising concerns about internet stability and the reliance on a single infrastructure provider.
Cloudflare, a major content delivery network (CDN) and internet security company, protects numerous websites from online threatsโ and ensures fast loading speeds. โขthe outage highlighted the potential for critically important disruption when such a criticalโข service experiences โissues, impactingโข millions of users globally. While the problem has been resolved, the incident underscores the concentration of internet infrastructureโ and theโ need for resilient systems.
According to a statement released by Cloudflare, theโค root cause of the outage was a configuration file used to manage threat traffic. “The file grew beyond an expected size of entries and triggered a crash in the software system that handles traffic for a โขnumberโข ofโฃ Cloudflare’s services,” the company explained. Cloudflare emphasized that ther was โ”no evidence that thisโข was the result of an attack or causedโค by maliciousโ activity.”
During the outage, users attempting to access affected websites were frequently enough presentedโ with โa message stating, “Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.” With the issue โขnow resolved, this โmessage โshould no longer appearโข for most users.
Downdetector reported a surge in outage reports for numerous websites during the peak of โthe disruption, including:
* Archiveโ of Our โขOwn
* Canva
* โฃ Canvas
* โ Character AI
* ChatGPT
* claude AI
* Dayforce
* โฃ โ Google Store
* Grindr
* โข Ikea
* โ Indeed
* League of Legends
*โ Letterboxd
*โ OpenAI
* โQuizlet
* Rover
* Spotify
* โ Square
*โค โคโ Truth Social
* Uber
* X, formerly Twitter
* Zoom
This report was contributed to by Melina Khan, USA TODAY.Iris seaton is the trending โคnews reporter for the Asheville โขCitizen times,part of the USA TODAY Network.