On Tuesday, November 19, 2025, several major online platforms experienced widespread disruptions due to a technical issue at Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure company that provides content delivery, security, and networking services to a vast array of websites and online applications. Platforms impacted included Spotify, X (formerly Twitter), ChatGPT, Canva, Shopify, Dropbox, Coinbase, and Moody’s credit ratings service, among others. Even transport services such as New Jersey Transit and France’s national railway company SNCF reported service disruptions.

Cloudflare later confirmed that the outage was caused by a “latent bug” in one of its internal services and not by a cyberattack. The issue has since been resolved, but it caused significant interruptions across multiple digital services worldwide, illustrating just how dependent the modern internet ecosystem has become on a handful of infrastructure providers.

What Happened

Cloudflare’s Chief Technology Officer Dane Knecht provided an explanation of the incident via X, stating that the disruption originated from a latent bug in a service that underpins Cloudflare’s bot mitigation capabilities. According to Knecht, the bug was triggered after a routine configuration change, causing a cascading failure that degraded multiple services across Cloudflare’s global network.

He wrote, “In short, a latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability started to crash after a routine configuration change we made. That cascaded into a broad degradation to our network and other services. This was not an attack.”

The company managed to restore traffic flowing through its network by approximately 14:30 UTC (20:00 IST) on Tuesday. However, the control plane, which includes Cloudflare’s dashboard and APIs used by customers to configure services, required additional work to fully recover. Knecht confirmed that the control plane is now fully operational and that the company is monitoring all systems to ensure normal operations. A detailed postmortem of the incident is expected to be published soon.

Platforms and Services Affected

The outage had a far-reaching impact, affecting numerous high-profile websites, online platforms, and services globally. Among the affected were:

• Spotify – music streaming services experienced access issues for millions of users.
• X (formerly Twitter) – users reported difficulty logging in, posting, and retrieving content.
• ChatGPT – AI services faced intermittent downtime, preventing users from accessing the platform.
• Canva – design and creative tools became temporarily unavailable.
• Shopify – e-commerce platforms and online stores dependent on Shopify faced service interruptions.
• Dropbox – cloud storage access and file synchronization were impacted.
• Coinbase – cryptocurrency traders reported difficulties accessing trading and wallet services.
• Moody’s – the credit ratings agency website displayed an ‘Error Code 500’ message and directed users to Cloudflare for more information.

Transport services were also affected. New Jersey Transit reported that certain online services were slow or temporarily unavailable, disrupting scheduling and customer communications. Similarly, SNCF warned its users that some schedules and service information may have been unavailable or outdated during the outage.

Impact on Cloudflare and the Internet

Cloudflare, which manages approximately 20% of global internet traffic, experienced a 1.5% dip in its share priceduring early trading on Tuesday following the incident. Analysts and cybersecurity experts noted that the outage highlights the risks of centralization in internet infrastructure.

Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert and IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, explained to the Associated Press: “When you access a website protected by Cloudflare, your computer doesn’t connect directly to that site. Instead, it connects to the nearest Cloudflare server, which might be very close to your home. That protects the website from a flood of traffic, and it provides you with a faster response. It’s a win-win for everyone, until it fails, and 20% of the internet goes down at the same time.”

The incident has raised concerns over the reliability of critical infrastructure that supports not only commercial platforms but also public services, government systems, and financial institutions.

Cloudflare’s Response

Knecht acknowledged the severity of the outage and expressed regret for the disruption it caused, stating: “We failed our customers and the broader Internet when a problem in Cloudflare network impacted large amounts of traffic that rely on us.”

Cloudflare has since been actively monitoring its network and services to prevent any lingering issues. The company is expected to release a comprehensive incident report detailing the root cause, the chain of events leading to the outage, and the corrective measures implemented to avoid future occurrences.

Lessons and Implications

The Cloudflare outage serves as a reminder of the fragility of interconnected internet systems. Even a routine internal configuration change can have global repercussions when millions of websites and applications rely on a single infrastructure provider.

For businesses and users alike, the incident underscores the importance of redundancy, alternative access routes, and contingency planning for critical online services. Cloudflare’s wide reach across industries—including finance, e-commerce, creative services, entertainment, and transportation—means that future outages could have substantial economic and operational consequences.

Experts suggest that such incidents could also prompt companies to diversify their reliance on a single provider and explore multi-CDN (Content Delivery Network) strategies to mitigate the impact of localized or global disruptions.

Moving Forward

Cloudflare has committed to conducting a thorough post-incident analysis and improving internal controls to prevent similar outages. As businesses and consumers increasingly rely on cloud-based services, ensuring robust, reliable infrastructure is critical to maintaining the stability of the global internet.

The swift resolution of the outage and Cloudflare’s transparent communication have been appreciated by industry observers, but the event remains a stark reminder of how a single technical flaw in a critical infrastructure provider can temporarily disrupt large portions of the internet.