Cloudflare Outage Disrupts Major Websites, Revealing Internet Infrastructure Vulnerabilities

Cloudflare, a prominent provider of internet infrastructure, faced a significant outage on Tuesday that disrupted numerous websites and applications globally. Major platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), League of Legends, Spotify, and OpenAI, were among those affected, leading to widespread error messages.

The disruption lasted approximately three hours, prompting Cloudflare to investigate the underlying cause. They identified a configuration file issue that led to a software crash, which has since been addressed.

Despite early signs of recovery, many services continued to experience difficulties. Cloudflare's Chief Technology Officer acknowledged the company's failure to prevent such incidents and emphasized the need for enhanced safeguards.

This outage serves as a stark reminder of the internet's vulnerability, particularly when major infrastructure providers encounter technical problems. The incident not only impacted users but also affected stock performance, with shares of Cloudflare dropping in premarket trading.