Global Internet Disruption: Cloudflare Outage Impacts Hiiraan Online and Major Platforms Worldwide
On Tuesday, Hiiraan Online and several leading digital platforms faced widespread service interruptions after a major outage hit Cloudflare, a U.S.-based internet infrastructure company responsible for nearly 20% of global web traffic.
The disruption began shortly after 11:20 a.m. UTC, when Cloudflare detected what it described as a “spike in unusual traffic.” This triggered large-scale connection failures and 500-error messages across multiple regions, affecting websites, apps, and enterprise systems around the world.
Platforms impacted included ChatGPT, X (formerly Twitter), Canva, Dropbox, Shopify, Coinbase and Downdetector, while Hiiraan Online users reported slow loading times and temporary access issues.
Cloudflare confirmed that the outage caused “elevated error rates” across several services and cautioned that intermittent problems would continue during the restoration period. To stabilize traffic, engineers temporarily shut down WARP, Cloudflare’s secure browsing service, particularly for users in London and other major hubs.
Meanwhile, OpenAI reported a “full outage” of ChatGPT, attributing the failure to Cloudflare’s network issues. On X, users were unable to load images, timelines or search results, with many of the error messages referencing Cloudflare’s disrupted infrastructure.
At the peak of the outage, Downdetector recorded over 5,000 user reports describing website crashes, server failures and loading interruptions. Public services, financial platforms, transportation networks and media organizations also experienced delays or temporary shutdowns.
Cloudflare stated that its team was “all hands on deck” to restore global traffic flow. Services gradually began to recover, although the company has not yet confirmed whether the outage was caused by a cyberattack, configuration error, or scheduled maintenance. A full investigation will follow once systems are stable.
Cybersecurity experts say the incident highlights the growing dependence of the global internet on a small number of behind-the-scenes service providers.
As Prof. Alan Woodward of the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security explained:
“These outages remind us how concentrated the backbone of the internet really is. When a major provider fails, the impact is immediate and widespread.”
Cloudflare’s stock dropped nearly 5% in early New York trading following news of the outage.
The incident comes just a month after a similar disruption at Amazon Web Services, which temporarily took down Snapchat, HMRC, Lloyds Bank and thousands of other digital services across Europe and North America.
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