What's happened
On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, Cloudflare experienced a major internal service degradation that caused widespread outages affecting websites like X, ChatGPT, Spotify, and others globally. The issue stemmed from an internal file doubling in size due to a database permission change, disrupting Cloudflare's bot management system and causing errors across its network. Recovery took several hours.
What's behind the headline?
Central Role of Cloudflare in Internet Stability
Cloudflare's outage underscores the fragility of the internet's backbone, where a single internal error cascades into global disruptions. The doubling in size of a key feature file, caused by a database permission change, reveals how even minor internal misconfigurations can have outsized impacts.
Concentration Risks in Cloud Infrastructure
With just a handful of companies—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Cloudflare—controlling the majority of cloud services, the internet's resilience is compromised. Failures at these firms ripple widely, affecting millions of users and businesses simultaneously.
Geopolitical and Economic Implications
The concentration of cloud infrastructure under U.S. jurisdiction raises concerns about potential geopolitical leverage, as noted by The Japan Times. While this outage was accidental, the possibility of cloud services being used as geopolitical tools is real.
Future Outlook
This incident will likely accelerate calls for diversification of cloud infrastructure and investment in resilience. Governments and businesses may push for more distributed architectures and stronger oversight to mitigate risks from such outages.
Impact on Users
For everyday users, these outages translate into inaccessible services, disrupted communications, and potential economic losses. The incident highlights the need for contingency planning and awareness of the internet's underlying vulnerabilities.
What the papers say
According to Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica, the root cause was an internal file doubling in size due to a database permission change, which disrupted Cloudflare's bot management system. The Times of Israel and The Scotsman detailed the widespread impact on services like X and ChatGPT, with thousands of users reporting errors. The Guardian's Robert Booth emphasized Cloudflare's critical role as a "gatekeeper" for internet traffic and noted the rarity of such failures given the company's scale. The Japan Times highlighted the broader risks of cloud service concentration, warning that outages at major U.S.-based providers can cost the global economy billions and could be exploited geopolitically. Business Insider UK and AP News reported on Cloudflare's ongoing remediation efforts and temporary service disablements, particularly in the UK. Sky News included expert commentary from cybersecurity veteran Graeme Stuart, who framed the outage as part of a pattern seen with other cloud giants, stressing the trade-off between scale benefits and systemic risk. The New York Times noted the outage's timing shortly after a major AWS disruption, underscoring the vulnerability of internet infrastructure concentrated in few hands.
How we got here
Cloudflare is a critical internet infrastructure company providing security and performance services to about 20% of global web traffic. Its services include bot management and protection against cyberattacks. Recent months have seen similar outages at major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, highlighting the internet's reliance on a few dominant firms.
Go deeper
- What caused the Cloudflare outage on November 18, 2025?
- How did the Cloudflare outage affect popular websites and services?
- What does this outage mean for the future of internet infrastructure?
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Cloudflare, Inc. is an American web-infrastructure and website-security company, providing content-delivery-network services, DDoS mitigation, Internet security, and distributed domain-name-server services.
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