Cloudflare outage disrupts X, ChatGPT and other parts of the internet

Cloudflare, a major provider of internet security and traffic management services, experienced a significant global outage early Tuesday, affecting a wide range of websites and applications. The company reported that the issue, which began before 7 a.m. Eastern, was largely resolved by 9:30 a.m., though intermittent errors were still being monitored.

According to Cloudflare, the outage was caused by a file that triggered a crash in the software system responsible for handling traffic across multiple services. The company emphasized that there was no evidence of malicious activity or a cyberattack. Users reported issues with sites and apps relying on Cloudflare, including Spotify, Amazon, and OpenAI, as tracked by outage monitoring service DownDetector.

By 8:15 a.m., Cloudflare noted that error rates for some services had returned to pre-incident levels, while work continued to restore full functionality. The disruption highlighted the critical role that companies like Cloudflare play in managing global internet traffic. Its software helps websites block cyberattacks, route content efficiently, and deliver data from the closest servers to users.

Smaller websites often rely on Cloudflare's free services, while major platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) subscribe to more comprehensive offerings. Experts warn that outages at such pivotal infrastructure providers can have widespread consequences.

"This is another alarming example of how dependent we have become on critical internet infrastructure," said Timothy Edgar, a cybersecurity expert and professor at Brown University. "Cloudflare handles trillions of requests every day and provides services to roughly a fifth of the internet."

The outage follows a string of major disruptions across global cloud providers. Last month, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure experienced outages that impacted numerous online services. In 2024, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike suffered a significant service failure that affected airlines, hospitals, and other essential systems worldwide.

David Choffnes, a computer science professor at Northeastern University, noted the unusual frequency of recent outages among major cloud providers. "It has not been the case that we have seen major outages like this in a short period of time. These companies are supposed to be really, really good at keeping things up," he said.

The Cloudflare incident serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of the global internet and the growing dependence on a handful of companies to maintain essential online services.