A Brief Internet Breakdown: Why X, LinkedIn, and Canva Went Offline
The internet felt broken for a little while this morning. If you tried to access major websites like X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, or Canva, you were likely met with a frustrating “500 internal server error.” You weren’t alone. A major, widespread outage at the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare caused a ripple effect across the web, taking down numerous high-profile services for about 20 minutes.
The global disruption started around 8:52 a.m. GMT and was largely resolved by 9:13 a.m. GMT. While short, the outage highlighted just how many popular platforms rely on a handful of core service providers. Cloudflare, an American company that provides security and performance services, is used by an estimated 20 percent of all websites worldwide.
Not a Cyberattack: The Technical Root Cause
In moments of widespread digital disruption, speculation often turns to a potential cyberattack. Cloudflare’s leadership moved quickly to dismiss that possibility. The company’s Chief Technology Officer, Dane Knecht, confirmed the issue was internal and not the result of malicious activity.
The problem stemmed from a preventative measure gone wrong. In a post on X, Knecht explained the details.
“We are aware of the issue impacting the availability of Cloudflare’s network. It was not an attack; root cause was disabling some logging to help mitigate this week’s React CVE. Will share full details in a blog post today. Sites should be back online now, but I understand the frustration this causes.”
A CVE, or Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, is a publicly known information security flaw. The statement suggests that in an attempt to protect against a software vulnerability, an action was taken that inadvertently brought down parts of their own network. Cloudflare began investigating the “internal service degradation” shortly before 9 a.m. and confirmed a fix was implemented just after 9:12 a.m.
Who Was Affected by the Cloudflare Outage?
The list of impacted services reads like a who’s who of popular online platforms. The brief outage was enough to cause significant headaches for users and businesses globally. According to reports from the outage tracking website DownDetector, users experienced problems with a wide mix of applications and sites.
Some of the major platforms that reported issues include:
- X (Twitter)
- Canva
- Shopify
- Zoom
- Substack
- Deliveroo
- Vinted
In a moment of irony, many users reported that even DownDetector itself was inaccessible during the event, a clear sign of just how deeply Cloudflare’s services are integrated into the web’s fabric. The company’s primary function is to act as a middleman, protecting websites from attacks and helping them load faster for users around the world.
A Reminder of the Internet’s Centralized Risk
This incident, coming just weeks after another mass outage from the company, serves as a stark reminder of the internet’s structural vulnerabilities. As more of the digital economy relies on a small number of massive cloud and infrastructure providers, a single point of failure can have cascading consequences. Experts argue this concentration of power poses a serious risk.
Tim Wright, a Technology Partner at the law firm Fladgate, commented on the broader implications of the outage.
“Cloudflare’s latest outage is another reminder that much of the internet runs through just a few hands. Businesses betting on “always-on” cloud resilience are discovering its single points of failure. Repeated disruptions will draw tougher scrutiny from regulators given DORA, NIS2, and the UK’s emerging operational resilience regimes. Dependence on a small set of intermediaries may be efficient but poses a structural risk the digital economy cannot ignore.”
Wright’s comments point toward a future where regulators may investigate this market concentration. While using services like Cloudflare is efficient, businesses are being forced to re-evaluate whether the convenience has begun to outweigh the loss of direct control over their own operations. For now, services are back online, but the conversation about the internet’s resilience is far from over.