On June 8, multiple websites faced an internet outage across North America, South America, Europe, Asia and South Africa. The incident occurred after Fastly Inc – an American cloud service provider – faced a configuration problem which led to users facing issues in accessing the firm’s client websites.
On June 8, we experienced a global service interruption. Here is what happened — and what happens next.https://t.co/gffDur5Moh
— Fastly (@fastly) June 9, 2021
The websites affected due to the outage included UK’s government website Gov.uk and content platforms Twitch, Pinterest, HBO Max, Hulu, Reddit and Spotify. News websites CNN, the Financial Times, the Guardian, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Independent, Evening Standard and New York Times also reported facing similar issues. According to Google’s Adsense, Guardian reported a huge publisher revenue loss of $300,000. Publisher outlets usually gain revenue through online advertisements displayed, however, were unable to earn for the time frame of the outage.
Nick Rockwell, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Infrastructure at Fastly Inc., apologized for the internet outage and stated that website services were restored in under 49 minutes with a few users initially facing a comparatively higher loading time:
“We experienced a global outage due to an undiscovered software bug that surfaced on June 8 when it was triggered by a valid customer configuration change. We detected the disruption within one minute, then identified and isolated the cause, and disabled the configuration. Within 49 minutes, 95% of our network was operating as normal. This outage was broad and severe, and we’re truly sorry for the impact to our customers and everyone who relies on them.”
We identified a service configuration that triggered disruptions across our POPs globally and have disabled that configuration. Our global network is coming back online. Continued status is available at https://t.co/RIQWX0LWwl
— Fastly (@fastly) June 8, 2021