39 gedocumenteerde incidenten

De volledige geschiedenis van
Wereldwijde internetstoringen

Van de ineenstorting van ARPANET in 1980 tot de doorsnijdingen van de onderzeese kabels van vandaag: een chronologisch overzicht van de incidenten die vorm hebben gegeven aan de manier waarop we veerkrachtige netwerken bouwen.

BGP-incidenten DNS-fouten Kabelsneden Cloudstoringen DDoS-aanvallen Uitschakelingen
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2020s
Dec 5, 2025

Cloudflare brief global disruption from configuration error (reported)

≈25 minutes (reported)
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Human error, Misconfiguration
Bad config deployment affected request handling; rollback resolved quickly (reported).
"Short-lived outages/errors across many proxied sites."
CDN/Cloud services
Oct 19, 2025

AWS us-east-1 major cascade outage (DynamoDB/EC2) (reported)

≈15 hours (reported)
Invloed
Global (services depending on us-east-1)
Oorzaak
Software bug, Systemic cascade
Prior response claimed DynamoDB DNS/discovery issue cascaded into EC2 control plane disruption; not verified here.
"Large downstream app outages and delayed autoscaling/instance launches (reported)."
Cloud provider
Sep 6, 2025

Red Sea cable cuts (SMW4 & IMEWE) (reported)

Weeks (repairs)
Invloed
Middle East, South Asia, East Africa, Europe–Asia transit
Oorzaak
Unknown, Possible sabotage, Human error
Multiple cables cut; attribution unclear.
"Regional slowdowns and rerouting/latency increase."
Submarine cables
Jul 24, 2025

Starlink global outage (core software services failure) (reported)

≈2.5 hours (reported)
Invloed
Global Starlink footprint
Oorzaak
Unknown, Software bug (suspected)
Reported failure of internal software services operating the core network (provider statement reported by analysts).
"Connectivity loss for satellite users."
Satellite ISP (LEO)
Forrester Kentik
Jun 12, 2025

Cloudflare outage attributed to Workers KV incident (reported)

≈2.5 hours (reported)
Invloed
Global (Cloudflare customers)
Oorzaak
Software bug, Change error
Prior response claimed Workers KV cascade; not verified here.
"Customer API/control plane disruption; some site/app errors."
CDN/Cloud services Control plane / distributed storage
May 20, 2025

Global routing instability from malformed BGP attribute (Prefix-SID) (reported)

Minutes (reported)
Invloed
Global (multi-AS)
Oorzaak
Software bug, Misconfiguration
Malformed BGP attribute propagated; certain vendors allegedly crashed/reset sessions.
"Brief reachability issues for some networks; high routing churn."
BGP routing Router software interoperability
Jan 15, 2025

Targeted cable incidents around Taiwan (reported)

Weeks for local restoration (reported)
Invloed
Taiwan and offshore islands (reported)
Oorzaak
Possible sabotage, Hardware/physical failure
Incidents attributed to vessel activity; intent disputed.
"Local outages and increased geopolitical concern."
Submarine cables
Nov 17, 2024

Baltic Sea subsea cable disruptions (reported sabotage)

Repairs over weeks (reported); immediate impact rerouted
Invloed
Northern Europe (Finland, Sweden, Baltics, Germany links)
Oorzaak
Unknown, Possible sabotage
Near-simultaneous cable cuts raised suspicion; attribution uncertain.
"Reduced capacity and higher latency; national security concern."
Submarine cables
The Guardian AP News
May 12, 2024

East Africa subsea cable damage (SEACOM & EASSy) (reported)

Weeks (repairs into early June)
Invloed
East and Southern Africa
Oorzaak
Human error, Hardware/physical failure
Anchor drag / storm-related incident damaged multiple cables.
"Major slowdowns and partial outages; increased latency; business disruption."
Submarine cables
Internet Society Kentik
Feb 9, 2024

Red Sea subsea cable cuts linked to Rubymar (AAE-1 / EIG / SEACOM) (reported)

Weeks (repairs)
Invloed
Middle East, South Asia, East Africa, Europe–Asia transit
Oorzaak
Human error, Conflict-related incident
Anchor drag from damaged/drifting vessel reportedly severed multiple cables.
"Regional slowdown/outages; rerouting and latency spikes."
Submarine cables
CSIS
Jan 3, 2024

Orange Spain routing registry compromise / BGP disruption

Hours (reported)
Invloed
Spain (primarily)
Oorzaak
Cyberattack / credential compromise
RIPE registry account compromise enabled route origin record changes causing routing issues.
"Connectivity disruption for ISP customers and hosted services."
BGP routing IRR/RPKI management
APNIC Blog SecurityWeek
Nov 2, 2023

Portland (Flexential) data center power failure impacts Cloudflare & Workday

Hours to ~1 day+ for full restoration (varied by service)
Invloed
Global services with dependencies; physical location Portland, OR (USA)
Oorzaak
Hardware failure
Power system failure and cascading generator/utility issues caused facility-wide outage.
"Loss of visibility/control for customers; SaaS downtime for enterprises."
Data center/power infrastructure Cloud/CDN control-plane
Cloudflare Cloudflare
Jun 13, 2023

AWS us-east-1 outage (Lambda-related cascading impacts)

≈2 hours (reported)
Invloed
Global (apps depending on us-east-1)
Oorzaak
Software bug
Lambda capacity-management bug triggered at scale, affecting dependent AWS services.
"App outages and degraded performance across multiple brands."
Cloud provider Serverless platform
May 9, 2023

Pakistan mobile internet shutdown (political unrest)

≈3 days (reported)
Invloed
Pakistan (nationwide)
Oorzaak
Political or regulatory action
Government ordered mobile networks offline; social platforms blocked during unrest.
"Major societal and economic disruption; suppressed information flow."
Government shutdown Mobile data
Internet Society Pulse Al Jazeera
Apr 4, 2023

Virgin Media UK ISP outages (BGP withdrawals/internal failure)

Two major outages (hours each) reported same day
Invloed
United Kingdom
Oorzaak
Unknown, Routing/control-plane failure (suspected)
Routes withdrawn and traffic dropped at edge; internal failure led to customer disconnects.
"Nationwide consumer/business connectivity disruption."
ISP BGP routing
Feb 2, 2023

Matsu Islands (Taiwan) dual undersea cable cuts

Weeks (reported)
Invloed
Matsu Islands (Taiwan)
Oorzaak
Hardware/physical failure, Possible sabotage
Two cables severed in early February; attributed to vessel activity (disputed intent).
"Severe local connectivity loss; reliance on microwave/satellite fallback."
Submarine cable
Jan 25, 2023

Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365 global outage (WAN routing incident)

Several hours (reported)
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Misconfiguration, Change error
Microsoft WAN routing change caused instability/route flaps impacting Azure and M365 services.
"Cloud and productivity suite disruptions affecting organizations worldwide."
Cloud provider WAN routing/BGP
ThousandEyes Practical365
Oct 25, 2022

Sudan protest-related national internet shutdown

≈8 hours (reported)
Invloed
Sudan (nationwide)
Oorzaak
Political or regulatory action
Authorities reduced/disabled connectivity during protests.
"Information suppression and disruption to services."
Government shutdown
Oct 19, 2022

Shetland Islands submarine cable cut (SHEFA-2)

≈14.5 hours (reported)
Invloed
Shetland Islands, Scotland (UK)
Oorzaak
Human error, Hardware/physical failure
Cable severed (often attributed to anchor/fishing activity).
"Local isolation; emergency services needed backups."
Submarine cable
The Guardian Shetland News
Sep 1, 2022

Iran protest-related internet shutdowns (curfews and regional blackouts)

Recurring daily hours + multi-day regional events
Invloed
Iran (nationwide and regional)
Oorzaak
Political or regulatory action
Authorities restricted/disabled mobile internet and platforms during protests.
"Communication suppression and economic disruption."
Government shutdown Mobile networks
Jul 8, 2022

Rogers Communications nationwide outage (Canada)

≈19–24 hours (major disruption)
Invloed
Canada (nationwide)
Oorzaak
Human error, Misconfiguration
Maintenance change removed a routing filter and triggered cascading routing/control-plane failures.
"Payment disruptions, emergency-call impacts, widespread societal disruption."
ISP/telecom core
ThousandEyes Government of Canada / CRTC
Oct 4, 2021

Facebook/Meta global outage (BGP + DNS reachability)

≈6 hours
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Human error, Misconfiguration
Backbone maintenance change withdrew BGP routes; DNS and internal tooling became unreachable, complicating recovery.
"Global disruption of messaging/social communications; business disruptions."
BGP routing DNS Private backbone
Engineering at Meta Cloudflare
2010s
Jun 24, 2019

Verizon BGP route leak impacting Cloudflare (and others)

≈1–2 hours
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Misconfiguration, Filtering failure
Customer route leak propagated through Verizon due to insufficient filtering; misrouting/blackholing ensued.
"Partial unreachability/slowness for many services; routing community alarm."
BGP routing
Cloudflare Cloudflare
Feb 28, 2017

AWS S3 outage (us-east-1) from operator error

≈4 hours
Invloed
Global (customers relying on us-east-1)
Oorzaak
Human error, Operational tooling/controls gap
Incorrect parameter in internal tool took down more S3 subsystems than intended; slow index recovery.
"Major web/app disruptions due to reliance on S3 in a single region."
Cloud provider Storage service
AWS The Guardian
Oct 21, 2016

Dyn DNS DDoS (Mirai botnet)

Intermittent over the day (multiple waves)
Invloed
North America, Europe, Global users of affected sites
Oorzaak
Cyberattack / DDoS
IoT botnet traffic overwhelmed Dyn’s DNS infrastructure.
"Widespread inability to resolve domains for major services."
DNS DDoS
ThousandEyes KrebsOnSecurity
Jan 27, 2011

Egypt nationwide internet shutdown (Arab Spring)

≈5 days (major blackout)
Invloed
Egypt (nationwide)
Oorzaak
Political or regulatory action
Government ordered ISPs to disconnect and withdraw routes to suppress protests.
"Severe societal and economic disruption; communications blackout."
Government shutdown BGP withdrawals
Wikipedia (overview) RIPE NCC (related analyses via RIPE Labs/archives)
Apr 8, 2010

China Telecom large-scale route leak/hijack (reported)

≈18 minutes (often reported)
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Misconfiguration, Disputed
Large number of prefixes announced via China Telecom; traffic detoured. Intent disputed.
"Potential traffic detours and risk of interception; user-visible impact unclear."
BGP routing
2000s
Feb 24, 2008

YouTube global outage via Pakistan Telecom BGP hijack

≈2 hours
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Political or regulatory action, Misconfiguration, Upstream filtering failure
Domestic blocking route advertised globally due to upstream propagation and insufficient filtering.
"Global unreachability of YouTube during incident window."
BGP routing Policy-driven filtering leak
Google Research CircleID
Jan 30, 2008

Mediterranean & Gulf submarine cable cuts (Middle East/South Asia disruption)

Days to weeks (repair dependent)
Invloed
Middle East, North Africa, South Asia (multi-country)
Oorzaak
Hardware/physical failure, Human error, Unknown
Multiple cable faults/cuts; some attributed to anchor drag, some unclear.
"Severe bandwidth reduction and international connectivity degradation."
Submarine cables
RIPE NCC Wikipedia
Dec 26, 2006

Taiwan (Hengchun) earthquake submarine cable breaks

Weeks (full repair reportedly ~49 days)
Invloed
East Asia / Asia-Pacific (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, etc.)
Oorzaak
Natural disaster
Undersea earthquake and landslides severed multiple major cables near Taiwan/Luzon Strait.
"Severe international connectivity degradation; high latency due to reroutes."
Submarine cables International backbone
Submarine Networks International Cable Protection Committee (PDF)
Jan 25, 2003

SQL Slammer worm

Hours (peak), with lingering effects over 1–2 days
Invloed
Global (notably Asia, North America, Europe)
Oorzaak
Cyberattack / malicious code, Software vulnerability
Worm exploited MS SQL Server vulnerability; explosive scanning caused congestion and outages.
"Severe congestion and widespread service disruptions."
Internet Cyber incident / traffic flood
NETSCOUT ASERT WeLiveSecurity (ESET)
1990s
May 19, 1998

Galaxy IV satellite failure

Days to ~1 week (varying by service)
Invloed
United States (nationwide), some Canada
Oorzaak
Hardware failure
Satellite control failure caused loss of service for pager/broadcast transponders.
"Mass pager outage affecting businesses and emergency communications."
Satellite communications
The Atlantic National Academies
Apr 13, 1998

AT&T frame relay cloud outage

Up to ≈26 hours for some customers
Invloed
United States (nationwide corporate WAN customers)
Oorzaak
Software bug, Change error
Software upgrade failure and error flooding caused network-wide instability.
"Corporate WAN disconnects; disrupted financial and airline operations (reported)."
Enterprise data network (Frame Relay)
Wired Los Angeles Times
Jul 17, 1997

“.com/.net DNS” outage (Network Solutions zone file error)

≈4 hours
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Human error
Corrupted/incorrect zone file update disrupted resolution for large numbers of domains.
"Large-scale name resolution failures; widespread site/email disruption."
DNS (TLD name servers)
BYTE (PDF) squid-cache.org
Apr 25, 1997

AS7007 BGP route leak

Hours (variously reported; not precisely captured here)
Invloed
Global
Oorzaak
Human error, Software bug, Misconfiguration
Misconfigured router and bug leaked more-specific routes and hijacked large portions of routing table.
"Widespread reachability problems due to misrouting/blackholing."
Internet backbone BGP routing
Wikipedia Cloudflare (PDF)
Jan 4, 1991

New York fiber cut disrupts multi-state communications

Hours (same-day restoration reported)
Invloed
US Northeast (New York, DC, Boston cited)
Oorzaak
Human error, Hardware/physical failure
Accidental severing of a major fiber trunk (construction/backhoe-style incident).
"Call blocking and disruptions to trading/aviation communications (reported)."
Fiber backbone (telecom/data)
Jan 15, 1990

AT&T long-distance network crash

≈9 hours
Invloed
United States (nationwide long-distance)
Oorzaak
Software bug
Faulty switch software update triggered cascading switch resets and signaling storms.
"Large-scale call failures; business disruption; delayed flights reported."
Telephony (PSTN long-distance) Switching network
Cal Poly (jdalbey) case study The Software Horror Picture Show (Uni Saarland)
1980s
Nov 2, 1988

Morris Worm outbreak

Days (major disruption over multiple days)
Invloed
Primarily US academic/military networks, Spillover impacts globally
Oorzaak
Cyberattack / malicious code, Software vulnerability, Human error
Self-replicating worm exploited weak passwords and vulnerabilities, saturating systems and networks.
"Severe network congestion and system outages; significant cleanup costs."
Internet (early TCP/IP) Cyber incident
Wikipedia CERT/CC (SEI)
Oct 27, 1980

ARPANET collapse (routing/IMP bug cascade)

≈4 hours
Invloed
United States (ARPANET nodes)
Oorzaak
Software bug
Status-message propagation and IMP error-handling/garbage-collection bug caused network-wide disruption.
"ARPANET connectivity loss across research sites."
Early Internet (ARPANET) Routing infrastructure
Computer History Museum VICE
2025 Cloudflare brief global disruption from configuration error (reported)

Patronen in de gegevens

Tientallen jaren van netwerkstoringen brengen terugkerende thema’s aan het licht in de manier waarop het internet kapot gaat.

Meest voorkomende oorzaak
Human error
13 incidenten
Piek decennium
2020s
22 geregistreerde incidenten
Totaal gedocumenteerd
39
Grote incidenten
Tijdspanne
1980 – 2025
45 jaar geschiedenis

Wat de geschiedenis ons leert

Elke grote storing laat lessen achter voor het bouwen van veerkrachtigere systemen.

Menselijke fouten zijn de rode draad

Van de AT&T-crash van 1990 tot de Facebook-storing in 2021: verkeerde configuraties en operationele fouten veroorzaken meer storingen dan welke andere factor dan ook. De complexiteit van moderne netwerken betekent dat een enkele typefout wereldwijd kan voorkomen.

BGP blijft de achilleshiel van het internet

Het Border Gateway Protocol dat verkeer tussen netwerken routeert, is ontworpen in een tijdperk van impliciet vertrouwen. Tientallen jaren later gaan routelekken en kapingen door omdat de implementatie van beveiligingsmaatregelen zoals RPKI nog steeds onvolledig is.

De fysieke infrastructuur is verrassend kwetsbaar

Onderzeese kabels vervoeren 95% van de intercontinentale data, maar zijn toch kwetsbaar voor ankers, aardbevingen en in toenemende mate opzettelijke interferentie. Geografische knelpunten zoals de Rode Zee blijven kritieke faalpunten.

Concentratie creëert systeemrisico

Wanneer AWS us-east-1 uitvalt, voelt het halve internet dat. Wanneer Cloudflare een probleem heeft, worden miljoenen websites onbereikbaar. De efficiëntiewinsten die voortvloeien uit centralisatie gaan gepaard met buitensporige faalwijzen.

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