The Shadow of Cloudflare That Stopped the Internet
On the evening of November 18, 2025, internet users worldwide were plunged into unprecedented chaos. Office workers trying to access ChatGPT, students checking the news on X (formerly Twitter), employees wanting to listen to music on Spotify, and gamers attempting to log into League of Legends all simultaneously encountered “Unable to Connect” errors. What felt like a massive blackout was, in reality, the internet effectively at a standstill.
At the heart of this entire crisis was a company most people had barely heard of, quietly existing in the background: Cloudflare.
Cloudflare: The Internet’s Unseen Mediator
“The biggest company you’ve never heard of”—a definition coined by Professor Allan Woodward from Surrey University’s Cyber Security Centre. This phrase perfectly encapsulates Cloudflare.
Cloudflare is a U.S.-based information and communications technology company that acts as an “intermediary” between users and website servers. Every website we visit, every app service we use daily, reaches us through this colossal middleman. Operating at the application layer of the OSI model, Cloudflare is arguably the “infrastructure of the internet’s infrastructure.”
Its core functionalities include:
- CDN (Content Delivery Network) that rapidly delivers content through globally distributed data centers
- DNS services managing the internet’s addressing system
- WAF (Web Application Firewall) that protects web applications
- DDoS defense systems blocking large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks
- Domain registration and management services
Why Cloudflare Matters: The Core of Internet Speed and Security
The true value of Cloudflare lies in its simplicity: enabling high-performance global web services without requiring significant effort or specialized expertise.
In the past, providing fast and stable services worldwide forced companies to sacrifice either performance or build complex systems themselves. However, Cloudflare simplified this complexity, allowing small startups to leverage global infrastructure comparable to big corporations.
This capability arises from Cloudflare’s architecture. When a user sends a request to a website, Cloudflare’s global network intercepts it, then responds by delivering cached content or forwarding the request to the origin server, performing security checks and optimizations before sending the response back. This process:
- Provides content from the data center closest to the user, boosting speed
- Blocks DDoS attacks and malicious traffic to enhance security
- Reduces load on origin servers, ensuring stability
- Enables easy management of all services via an integrated control panel
November 18, 2025: The Great Internet Collapse
At around 8:30 PM that evening, a critical error struck Cloudflare’s global network. Over the course of roughly an hour, global service instability persisted until most services recovered by about 9:40 PM.
Affected services included:
- AI platforms like ChatGPT and Copilot, essential tools for modern knowledge workers
- Social media: X (Twitter), some Facebook functions
- Gaming platforms: League of Legends, Path of Exile, itch.io
- Music streaming: Spotify
- E-commerce: Portions of Amazon’s services
Notably, the widespread AI service outages clearly demonstrated that the CDN is effectively the bottleneck determining AI’s speed and reliability. Mega services like ChatGPT and X rely inevitably on specific CDNs like Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS CloudFront to reduce latency across hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
Cause Revealed: A Single Configuration Error That Stopped the Internet
Cloudflare’s official statement identified a “database permission change” as the root cause.
More specifically, an issue arose during the deployment of a feature configuration file used by a machine learning model in the Bot Management module. A misconfiguration in permission settings during the network-wide rollout caused inconsistent behavior across data centers worldwide. This resulted in server-level 500 errors and cascading internal service degradation.
Worsening the situation, Cloudflare’s “global kill switch,” a fail-safe mechanism designed for outage response, triggered unexpectedly, amplifying the impact.
A Single Point of Failure: Exposing Structural Vulnerabilities
The most critical insight from this incident wasn’t just the technical glitch itself, but the structural fragility of modern internet infrastructure.
The absolute dependence on three major CDN/cloud providers is the fundamental root cause behind this crisis. The contemporary internet ecosystem, especially the AI ecosystem, depends heavily on:
- CDNs (Content Delivery Networks): Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS CloudFront
- DNS providers: Cloudflare, Google DNS, AWS Route 53
- Cloud backends: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
- Global backbone networks: Various telecom internet backbones
Among these, CDN providers like Cloudflare represent a “bottleneck.” Major platforms share the same “highway tollgates,” and if just one gate gets blocked, global services are simultaneously stalled.
Preventing Recurrence: Cloudflare’s Commitment
In response, Cloudflare announced several preventative measures:
- Expanding and refining the global kill switch functionality
- Strengthening automated verification in file deployment processes
- Overhauling permission management systems
- Improving outage response protocols
While technically significant, these steps don’t resolve the core issue of having a “single point of failure” in the system. Thus, companies must seriously consider:
- Multi-supply chain strategies: Avoiding dependence on a single CDN provider
- Enhanced local caching: Maintaining local backups of critical content
- Comprehensive outage response plans: Preparing for major infrastructure failures, such as at Cloudflare
In Closing: The Giant in the Shadows
Cloudflare truly is “the biggest company you’ve never heard of.” Until the massive outage on November 18, 2025, most people were unaware of its existence. Yet that single day’s service disruption vividly revealed how deeply Cloudflare has permeated the modern internet.
Cloudflare will continue to be a central player in the internet, especially as AI services rapidly expand. However, this outage serves as an important lesson for all of us:
“The internet is not simply a technology, but a shared social infrastructure we build together. While companies like Cloudflare play vital roles, developing a decentralized architecture that offsets their vulnerabilities is the key challenge for the internet’s future.”
The shadow of Cloudflare will remain cast over the internet. We must acknowledge it, while simultaneously striving to create a more resilient, distributed internet infrastructure.
The Invisible Intermediary: The World of Cloudflare
We use the internet every day. We check the news in the morning, watch YouTube at lunch, and scroll through social media in the evening. We take for granted that all these moments happen at the speed of light. But how many people truly realize that behind every webpage you open, every video you play, every message you send, there’s a vast invisible system at work?
That system is Cloudflare.
The Backbone of the Internet You Never Knew About
Cloudflare is a comprehensive information and communication technology company based in the United States, quietly operating as the "infrastructure of infrastructure" atop the basic framework of the internet. It provides services corresponding to the application layer (Layer 7) of the OSI model, serving as the crucial intermediary between users and website servers.
Professor Alan Woodward of Surrey University’s Cyber Security Centre described Cloudflare as "the biggest company you’ve never heard of." This is more than just a phrase. It captures the essence of Cloudflare—supporting all our daily digital activities while remaining unknown to most.
What Cloudflare Does
Cloudflare’s range of services is immense, offering the following core features:
CDN (Content Delivery Network): Delivers content swiftly through a globally distributed network of servers. This is why videos buffer less and webpages load instantly.
DNS Services: Manages the internet’s addressing system, converting the domain names you type into actual server addresses.
WAF (Web Application Firewall): Enhances web application security by blocking malicious access.
DDoS Protection: Shields websites from massive distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Domain Registration and Management: Provides fundamental services for website domains.
What truly sets Cloudflare apart is its ability to manage all these services seamlessly under one roof.
The Real Value of Cloudflare
What is Cloudflare’s core value? It lies in enabling users to build high-performance global web services “without extra effort or specialized knowledge.”
In the past, deploying high-quality backend services worldwide demanded huge expenses or complex infrastructure setups. Cloudflare simplified this. From individual developers to large corporations, anyone can now operate global-level services with ease.
Especially by offering free accounts, Cloudflare has become a pioneer in democratizing the internet. This move is more than marketing—it is a transformative decision that changed the entire internet ecosystem.
The Largest Network on the Planet
Today, Cloudflare has grown into one of the world’s largest networks, managing “millions of internet assets.” It operates data centers in over 300 cities worldwide, handling a significant portion of global internet traffic.
These numbers are not just statistics; they prove how critical Cloudflare is to internet infrastructure. From ChatGPT to X (Twitter), Spotify to League of Legends—the services you use every day reach your device through Cloudflare.
The True Hero Behind the Internet
What makes Cloudflare truly remarkable is that it’s more than just a service provider. It is the infrastructure backbone of the modern internet ecosystem. The reason you receive content quickly, stay protected from hacking, and enjoy stable service no matter where you are—behind it all stands Cloudflare.
Cloudflare is indeed the biggest company you’ve never heard of, yet one that you use every day without even knowing it. In the next section, we will take a closer look at the technical principles behind Cloudflare’s operation and how it is transforming our internet experience.
3. A Deadly Day: The Full Story of the Cloudflare Outage on November 18, 2025
A simple ‘DB permission change’ paralyzed the entire world. We reveal, in full detail, why everything from AI to music, games, and social media came to a halt, how the outage unfolded, and the shocking repercussions it triggered.
The Outbreak: The Moment Tranquility Shattered
On the evening of November 18, 2025, internet users worldwide faced sudden chaos. Around 8:30 PM Korean time, a severe error struck Cloudflare’s global network. Initially assumed to be isolated site outages, the situation rapidly deteriorated.
The services users couldn’t access were astonishingly diverse. This wasn’t a glitch confined to a few websites—it was a paralysis of the very backbone of the internet. It starkly revealed just how crucial Cloudflare’s role was across a vast array of domains.
The Domino Effect: Major Global Services Crippled Simultaneously
The scope of impacted services was beyond imagination.
AI service platforms suffered the most visible blow. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot went completely offline, locking users out of AI services. This wasn’t just an inconvenience; entire business workflows and countless personal routines relying on AI ground to a halt.
Social media platforms didn’t escape unscathed—X (formerly Twitter) and certain Facebook functionalities became inaccessible, denying hundreds of millions access to their favorite communities.
The gaming industry faced a real-time crisis. Popular online games like League of Legends and Path of Exile lost server connections, while platforms like itch.io also went dark. Gamers globally found any attempts to log in futile.
Music streaming services were no exception. Spotify’s service became unstable, preventing users from properly enjoying their favorite tunes.
E-commerce was hit as well. Parts of Amazon’s services went down, striking a direct blow to online shopping ecosystems.
What united all these services? Every one of them depended on Cloudflare’s network—highlighting just how concentrated and fragile modern internet infrastructure truly is.
The Root Cause: A Deadly Mistake Called ‘DB Permission Change’
Cloudflare officially disclosed the precise cause of the outage. Shockingly, this global catastrophe stemmed from a technical yet surprisingly simple error.
The problem began within the Bot Management module, designed to distinguish human users from automated bots using machine learning models. The trouble pinpointed to the deployment process of these models’ feature configuration files.
Specifically, the sequence unfolded like this:
Initial Error: An issue occurred during the deployment of machine learning model feature configuration files.
Permission Misconfiguration: As these files were distributed across Cloudflare’s global network, an error in permission settings arose—not just a bug or misconfiguration, but an actual change in database (DB) permissions.
Consistency Breakdown: This caused inconsistent behaviors among worldwide data centers, each operating under differing permissions, shattering system synchronization.
Widespread Internal Service Degradation: Consequently, 500 Internal Server Errors emerged across servers nationwide, severely degrading Cloudflare’s internal services.
The situation worsened due to Cloudflare’s emergency “global kill switch” feature. Intended to immediately shut down service in case of systemic issues, it instead amplified the outage unpredictably.
The Spread and Impact of the Outage
In the roughly one hour following the error, Cloudflare strived to regain control. But the root cause—DB permission changes—was not something solvable by simple software updates or service restarts; it was a profound problem.
This crisis particularly underlined the vulnerability of AI services. It reaffirmed that CDNs essentially bottleneck AI responsiveness and reliability. Major platforms like ChatGPT and X rely heavily on specific CDNs—Cloudflare, Akamai, AWS CloudFront—to minimize latency globally.
By about 9:40 PM, after approximately 70 minutes, most services began recovering. Still, the economic fallout during that brief span was staggering: interrupted workflows, lost sales, and a significant hit to user trust cascaded worldwide.
Prevention Measures: Cloudflare’s Commitment
Post-outage, Cloudflare announced concrete plans to avoid future repeats.
Enhanced global kill switch system: They will replace the blunt, all-or-nothing kill switch with a more granular system that isolates only affected segments instead of shutting down entire infrastructures.
Automated validation in file deployment: Critical files like machine learning feature configs will undergo automated checks before deployment, detecting permission misconfigurations early.
Revamped permission management: Stricter review processes will now govern sensitive operations like DB permission changes.
Upgraded incident response protocols: New procedures aim to enable faster, more precise action upon outage detection.
The Shockwave: Exposing the Internet Infrastructure’s Vulnerabilities
What’s the crucial takeaway from this incident? The single point of failure problem within internet infrastructure.
That one outage at Cloudflare could simultaneously cripple colossal platforms from ChatGPT and X to Spotify and League of Legends reveals how fragile the internet’s architecture is—like countless highways funneling through a single tollgate.
This isn’t solely Cloudflare’s issue. It exposed structural risks stemming from internet infrastructure—DNS, cloud backends, global backbone networks—being heavily concentrated among a handful of tech giants.
This outage serves as a stark wake-up call: companies must seriously consider multi-vendor strategies, enhanced local caching, and robust disaster recovery plans to shield themselves from similar catastrophic risks.
The Bottleneck of the Internet Highway: The Hidden Vulnerability of Internet Infrastructure
On the evening of November 18, 2025, the world simultaneously experienced an unprecedented internet outage. From ChatGPT to X, from Spotify to League of Legends—major services all stopped working for the same reason. The culprit was a single company: Cloudflare. Even more startling, this was no mere coincidence. Modern internet services are overwhelmingly dependent on a few massive infrastructure providers, and this represents the internet’s most fragile point.
Cloudflare: A Major Player in the CDN Triumvirate
The CDN (Content Delivery Network) market, which dictates internet speed and reliability, is dominated by a handful of colossal companies. Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS CloudFront form a sort of “Three Kingdoms” era, with Cloudflare standing as one of the world’s largest networks, supporting “millions of internet assets.”
Why is this structure problematic? It’s simple. For massive platforms to deliver content swiftly to global users, they must pass through CDN providers like Cloudflare. It’s like all cars on a highway having to pass through a single tollgate. When one tollgate shuts down, every car on that highway grinds to a halt—a perfect analogy for what happened.
AI Services and Cloudflare: An Unavoidable Bottleneck
This problem is even more acute with AI services. Giants like ChatGPT and X need to respond to billions of global requests in real time with minimal latency. Inevitably, they rely heavily on major CDNs such as Cloudflare.
The CDN functions as an intermediary between users and origin servers, effectively becoming the critical bottleneck determining "AI speed and reliability." How quickly an AI service responds is no longer dictated solely by AI model performance. Instead, the CDN's performance and stability—Cloudflare’s included—directly impact user experience.
The Absolute Dependency in Internet Infrastructure: The Danger of a Single Point of Failure
If we layer modern internet service infrastructure, it looks like this:
Layer One - CDN: The triumvirate of Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS CloudFront
Layer Two - DNS: Cloudflare, Google DNS, AWS Route 53
Layer Three - Cloud Backend: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
Layer Four - Global Backbone Network: Internet backbones operated by various telecom companies
What’s fascinating is that Cloudflare is responsible not only for the first layer of CDN but also for DNS services in the second layer. This means a Cloudflare outage doesn’t just slow things down—it can disrupt DNS lookups entirely. This was clearly demonstrated in the November 18, 2025 incident.
The Fatal Flaw in the Tollgate System
If we liken the internet to a highway, its current structure is alarming:
- Concentration of Major Platforms: Global services like ChatGPT, X, Spotify, and Amazon all funnel through the same "tollgate."
- Lack of Backup Systems: When a major CDN suffers an outage, most services are immediately affected. During Cloudflare’s roughly one-hour downtime, services worldwide simultaneously froze.
- Limits to Expansion: Regardless of technological advances, the structural nature of the internet means reliance on centralized CDNs like Cloudflare is inevitable.
This is a textbook case of a "Single Point of Failure" in economics—a single breakdown can collapse an entire system.
The Vicious Cycle of Infrastructure Dependency: Why Is It Inevitable?
Why don’t companies use multiple CDNs? While theoretically possible, it’s practically challenging due to:
Cost Efficiency: Cloudflare offers an affordable pricing structure starting with free plans, making it highly accessible to small developers and startups.
Technical Complexity: Managing multiple CDNs simultaneously demands advanced technical staff and complicated routing logic.
Ecosystem Lock-In: Once inside Cloudflare’s ecosystem, users become “locked in,” adopting multiple services within the same platform.
As a result, Cloudflare has grown beyond a simple CDN provider into "the largest company you’ve probably never heard of."
The Future of the Internet: Strategies and Challenges for Improvement
This massive outage laid bare the structural vulnerabilities of internet infrastructure. Improvements demand:
Multi-Supplier Strategies: Avoid depending on a single CDN by diversifying contracts among multiple providers to spread risk.
Enhanced Local Caching: Back up critical content on regional servers to maintain some services even amid CDN failures.
Development of Decentralized Architectures: Explore distributed technologies like blockchain or peer-to-peer networks.
Global Cooperation: Internet infrastructure weaknesses transcend individual companies or nations. Companies like Cloudflare, governments, and academia must collaborate to build a more resilient internet framework.
For now, we have no choice but to pass through the Cloudflare “highway tollgate.” Yet, we must acknowledge that this means placing the entire internet’s fate in one company’s hands. May the lessons from November 18, 2025, guide us toward a more robust and resilient internet infrastructure.
The Road Ahead: A Decentralized Future and Cloudflare’s Challenge
Cloudflare, a key player in the internet ecosystem, is designing the future through AI and enhanced security. Yet, the issue of a single point of failure on the internet remains. What is the vision for a resilient internet that we must all build together?
The Fusion of Cloudflare and the AI Ecosystem
Since the massive outage on November 18, 2025, Cloudflare has presented a reinforced strategy. Especially, its integration with AI platform ecosystems signals not just a growth tactic but an evolution of internet infrastructure itself.
Cloudflare is currently focused on building an integrated platform for AI model deployment. Through collaboration with Replicate, it is creating an environment where developers can deploy AI services at global scale without complex infrastructure management. This foundation is essential for AI services like ChatGPT and Copilot to reach users worldwide with low latency.
Cloudflare has declared its ambition to become the "default for building web apps." This is not merely a statement of technological superiority but a bold commitment to become the standard for internet infrastructure in the AI era. Future services are increasingly likely to be developed directly atop Cloudflare’s ecosystem.
Enhanced Security: The Line Between Humans and Bots
Another critical evolution in Cloudflare’s journey lies in security. The rapid advancement of AI technology has simultaneously increased the sophistication of cyberattacks. In response, Cloudflare is developing advanced AI-powered bot detection systems with enhanced capabilities to "verify and confirm that users are human."
This security enhancement is more than just defense; it is a cornerstone for securing trust in the internet of the future. Distinguishing automated AI attacks from legitimate human access will be one of the most crucial challenges in upcoming internet security.
The Significance of Global Infrastructure Expansion
Cloudflare now operates data centers in over 300 cities worldwide, with that number continuing to grow. This goes beyond simple geographic expansion. Each regional data center balances delivering tailored local market services while maintaining global consistency.
Especially in developing countries and local communities, Cloudflare’s global network offers the opportunity to "distribute high-quality backend services globally." Services rooted in local contexts, once impossible, can now be delivered with global standard performance and stability.
The Single Point of Failure Issue: Challenges That Remain
However, Cloudflare’s growth and rising importance also introduce new risks. As seen in past outages, a single problem at Cloudflare can still cripple major services worldwide.
This challenge is not Cloudflare’s alone to bear. The entire technology industry and internet community must collaborate on solutions. The following strategies are essential:
Multi-Supply Chain Strategy: Organizations should no longer depend on a single CDN provider. Automated failover systems must be built among multiple providers like Cloudflare, Akamai, and AWS CloudFront.
Strengthened Local Caching: Maintaining local backups of critical content and establishing local systems capable of providing basic services even during global infrastructure disruptions is necessary.
Development of Decentralized Architectures: Moving away from centralized infrastructure dependence toward architectures leveraging edge computing and distributed network technologies is crucial.
The Vision of a Resilient Internet
It is clear that Cloudflare will continue to lead in technological innovation. Yet, a truly resilient internet cannot be achieved by a single company’s effort alone.
The future internet must exhibit these features:
Interoperability: Stronger interoperability between Cloudflare and other infrastructure providers is needed. This will enable automatic switching to alternative providers without delay in the event of one provider’s failure.
Transparency: Infrastructure providers must openly disclose information about system status, capacity, and points of failure.
Continuous Innovation: Infrastructure must evolve continuously in step with the rapid pace of technological progress. Cloudflare’s enhancements to global kill switch functions and file distribution processes exemplify these efforts.
A Responsibility Shared by All
Ultimately, the future of a resilient and stable internet is forged at the intersection of technical innovation by companies like Cloudflare and the proactive preparedness and participation of all users and organizations.
Developers must design architectures considering multi-supply chains, companies must establish outage response plans, and users must understand service vulnerabilities. This is the internet future we all must build together.
While Cloudflare is a central figure in the internet, the internet itself is a shared resource that cannot rely on a single company alone. The challenges ahead will emerge from the harmony between improved technologies and decentralized architectures.
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