A Terrible Month of Massive Internet Outages Strikes Major Tech Firms
Millions of internet users experience major disruptions as a string of unrelated outages hit tech giants like Google and Cloudflare. Routine configuration errors, network route leaks, and damaged cables cause widespread service breakdowns throughout June and early July.
The internet experiences a rough stretch as several major outages disrupt millions of users across the globe over the past month. Sites buckle, services break, direct messages halt, and calendars and email remain unavailable for hours at a time. Analysts do not believe a single event ties these outages together, pointing instead to a streak of terrible luck for major technology providers.
The string of bad luck begins on June 2 when a faulty configuration change takes down Google Cloud for over three hours along the U.S. east coast. The bug cascades through Google's servers and knocks out popular platforms like Discord, Snap, and Vimeo. Later, on June 24, Cloudflare drops 15 percent of its global traffic after Verizon sends a bad network route that overwhelms the system, causing major disruptions for Amazon and Linode.
Cloudflare suffers a second blow on July 2 when a bad piece of code in its web firewall spikes processor usage worldwide and cripples the service for half an hour. On the exact same day, Google faces another six-hour outage caused by physical damage to a fiber cable on the U.S. east coast. Engineers for both companies work quickly to roll back faulty code and mitigate the physical damage to restore normal operations.