Global Internet was suspended for three hours due to a security glitch in Cloudflare
On November 18, Internet users saw the message "500 Internal Server Error" on their screens around the world almost simultaneously — at about 12:20 Paris time (11:20 UTC). ChatGPT, Claude AI, X, Spotify, Canva, gaming platforms, and even the McDonald's ordering system all blocked access. "We have seen a surge in unusual traffic," said the American company Cloudflare, through whose infrastructure most of the largest Internet services operate. "This caused errors in part of the traffic through our network." The company's shares fell 3.5%.
On Tuesday, November 18, in the afternoon, the world's largest platforms — ChatGPT, Claude AI, X (formerly Twitter), Spotify, Canva — simultaneously blocked access to users. A message about the Cloudflare identification error appeared on the main pages. It is this American company that provides the technical infrastructure for most of the largest Internet services - and it is it that has failed.
The problems started at 12:20 p.m. Paris time (11:20 UTC). Cloudflare recorded a "surge in unusual traffic" on one of its internal services. After a few minutes, sites all over the world started giving "500 Internal Server Error" errors or simply refused to load.
20% of global Internet traffic – 300 thousand customers in 125 countries
About 20% of the world's Internet traffic passes through Cloudflare's infrastructure. The company serves almost 300,000 customers in 125 countries. When it fails, it stops all at once.
The media reports that not only social networks and AI platforms were affected. McDonald's online ordering systems, New Jersey Transit transportation services, crypto exchanges, League of Legends and Valorant gaming platforms have stopped working in the United States. Even the DownDetector crash tracking service turned out to be unavailable — it also works through Cloudflare. At its peak, the system recorded more than 11,000 user complaints.
The nature of the errors varied. Someone couldn't log in to their account, someone saw subscription screens instead of their data - the authorization system simply didn't work. X gave out "Something went wrong. Try reloading" — "Something went wrong. Try to reboot." ChatGPT offered to register again. Claude AI showed a paid subscription page.