Cloudflare went down again: what happened and why services became unavailable
Today, another global Cloudflare outage occurred, causing dozens of popular websites worldwide to work with interruptions or stop opening entirely. The first outage happened recently, and we already covered it. Issues began appearing almost simultaneously in different countries, and users reported widespread connection errors, “500 Internal Server Error”, and pages failing to load. Some services worked intermittently, while others did not open at all.
According to Cloudflare’s official information, the incident was caused by internal changes in security system settings, which resulted in malfunctions across platforms that rely on the company’s network. A wide range of services was affected — from corporate tools to online stores and social platforms. Cloudflare stated that a fix has already been implemented, but full recovery depends on how quickly updates propagate across the global infrastructure.
Which services stopped working
The Cloudflare outage affected numerous platforms that use the company’s network for content delivery, protection, and traffic routing. Massive user reports on social networks and Downdetector indicated that problems appeared across several categories of services at once.
The most noticeable disruptions occurred in Zoom, LinkedIn, and other work-related platforms. Some users could not open these sites at all, while others experienced long loading times or connection errors. Such symptoms are typical when Cloudflare cannot consistently handle requests due to issues within its infrastructure.
Media outlets also reported issues accessing Canva, Perplexity, and several other services that rely on Cloudflare’s CDN and security tools. Users mentioned being unable to log into accounts, encountering loading errors, and seeing standard error codes — 500, 522, 525.
Some websites operated inconsistently: certain pages would load, but actions inside the services were executed with significant delays. This is expected during incidents of this type — the system can partially process requests, but reduced bandwidth or routing errors lead to instability.
The full list of affected resources has not been named yet, but major media outlets confirm that the outage was global and impacted thousands of websites using Cloudflare.
Why Amazon and other websites stopped working
The main reason services like Amazon, Shopify, Zoom, or Canva may become unavailable during a Cloudflare outage lies in their dependence on the company’s infrastructure. Cloudflare provides CDN, DNS resolution, traffic filtering, and an additional security layer for a significant portion of the internet. When an outage occurs in this system, the effect becomes global instantly.
Official reports confirmed that today’s incident was caused by internal changes to firewall settings, which triggered errors in request processing. As a result, websites using Cloudflare began returning common error codes — 500, 522, 525 — or stopped responding entirely. For users, this appeared as “Amazon is not working”, “Canva won’t open”, or “connection error when logging into Zoom”.
It is important to understand that even services that are not direct Cloudflare clients can suffer due to the chain dependency of internet infrastructure. If DNS fails or routing is disrupted, internet services simply cannot “find the way” to their servers. That is why issues today were recorded in different countries and on websites that are not directly related.
According to media reports, Amazon was not entirely down, but some pages and modules worked with interruptions. This is typical behavior when CDN bandwidth is partially reduced. Similar symptoms were observed during previous global outages when Cloudflare or AWS modified their security configurations.
Cloudflare confirmed that the cause was a technical error, not a cyberattack. The company has already implemented a fix, but full recovery depends on DNS propagation time across the global network.
Official comments from Cloudflare
Cloudflare confirmed the outage almost immediately after users began reporting widespread website malfunctions. On the company’s official status page, it was stated that the issues were caused by an error in internal security configuration, which affected the dashboard, API, and services dependent on Cloudflare for delivery and routing.
The statement also emphasized that the engineering team identified the source of the outage and implemented a fix. The company noted that after applying the fix, the system requires time to fully stabilize because changes must propagate through the global network of data centers. This explains why some websites began working sooner, while others remained unavailable for some time.
An important detail highlighted by Cloudflare: the incident was not the result of a cyberattack. It was a technical error related to internal settings, not external interference. The company makes such clarifications whenever an outage draws global attention to avoid speculation regarding security.
Cloudflare added that it continues monitoring the network to ensure stable operation of all services and to prevent recurring issues. According to them, the “service disruption” was contained and controlled after the patch was applied.
Confirmed information about the cause of the Cloudflare outage
1. Cloudflare officially stated that the outage was caused by
internal changes in firewall configuration
This is explicitly mentioned in the company’s updates:
– incorrect changes in security settings (firewall rules)
– they disrupted the dashboard and API
– the outage spread through the company’s global network
This information was confirmed by Reuters and AP News, citing Cloudflare.
2. It
was not a cyberattack
Cloudflare emphasized that the outage was not related to DDoS or external interference.
The cause was a technical error during security rules modification.
3. The fix was “implemented immediately”
The company stated that:
– engineers quickly identified the problem;
– applied the correction;
– the network is gradually returning to normal operation.
They also noted that full recovery may take time due to global propagation of changes across the infrastructure.
4. Confirmed issues with Dashboard and API
Cloudflare reported that internal services (dashboard, API) also experienced disruptions, which often indicates configuration errors rather than external traffic.
5. Affected websites — a result of disrupted request processing at CDN / DNS / WAF levels
Due to the firewall error, some requests simply didn’t reach servers, leading to:
– error 500 – 522 – 525 – complete page unavailability
This information is also confirmed by The Guardian, describing the outage as “global and widespread”.
Official comments from Cloudflare
Cloudflare promptly confirmed the outage right after users began reporting widespread website issues around the world. The status center stated that the incident was caused by an error in internal security configuration, specifically firewall settings. This change caused instability in the dashboard, API, and services using Cloudflare for traffic routing and CDN.
The company reported that engineers quickly located the source of the outage and implemented a fix, after which the network began gradually recovering. Due to Cloudflare’s global structure, changes require time to propagate fully, so some websites recovered sooner while others continued to experience instability.
Cloudflare also emphasized that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack. It was a technical error similar in nature to a recent incident — the one we previously covered in UITech:
“Cloudflare outage: how a single file error caused internet disruptions worldwide”
At that time, a configuration file change caused a massive outage. Today’s event has a different technical origin but again demonstrates how sensitive global internet infrastructure can be to internal errors in major companies.
Cloudflare noted that it continues monitoring the network to ensure service stability and to prevent repeated disruptions.
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