Headlines
Cloudflare restores services after outage impacts thousands of internet users
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 18, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 18, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Cloudflare restored services after an outage caused by a large configuration file. The issue affected major platforms like X and ChatGPT, with no malicious activity detected.
By Jaspreet Singh
(Reuters) -Cloudflare has fully restored its services after an outage on Tuesday at the web-infrastructure company prevented thousands from accessing major internet platforms, including X and ChatGPT.
The company said the outage that began around 6.30 a.m. ET was caused by an automatically generated configuration file, designed to manage potential security threats.
The file grew too large and crashed the software system handling traffic for several Cloudflare services, the company, whose network handles around a fifth of web traffic, said.
The company said it has started to investigate and has deployed a fix but some customers might still be impacted as it recovers service globally. Its shares were down 2.3% in morning trading.
Cloudflare said there was "no evidence that this was the result of an attack or caused by malicious activity". It runs one of the world's largest networks that helps websites and apps load faster and stay online by protecting them from traffic surges and cyberattacks.
Last month, an outage at Amazon's cloud service caused global turmoil as thousands of popular websites and apps, including Snapchat and Reddit, were inaccessible due to the disruption.
The latest outage at Cloudflare prevented thousands of users from accessing platforms such as Canva, X, Grindr and ChatGPT, prompting users to log outage reports with Downdetector.
X and ChatGPT-creator OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. Reports about issues with Cloudflare dropped to about 2,800 by 10:20 a.m. ET from a peak of over 11,000, the outage-tracking tool showed.
Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources. Since the numbers are based on user-submitted reports, the actual number of affected users may vary.
"We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services beginning at 11:20 UTC. That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare's network to experience errors," the company said earlier in the day.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Anil D'Silva and Arun Koyyur)
A cloud service provides computing resources over the internet, allowing users to access data and applications remotely without needing physical hardware.
Cybersecurity involves protecting computer systems and networks from theft, damage, or unauthorized access, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.
A configuration file is a text file used to set parameters and initial settings for software applications, determining how they operate.
An outage refers to a period when a service or system is unavailable, often due to failures, maintenance, or technical issues.
Market reaction refers to how investors respond to news or events affecting a company or industry, often reflected in stock price movements.
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