Cloudflare outage that knocked X, ChatGPT and other sites resolved; Was it a cyber attack?

Cloudflare has fixed issues causing outages for numerous platforms, including ChatGPT and New Jersey Transit.

Updated on: Nov 18, 2025, 23:40:14 IST

By Shweta Kukreti

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Cloudflare, a provider of cloud-based internet security and services, announced that an outage which affected online operations for several well-known websites and applications, including X, Donald Trump's Truth Social and the AI chatbot ChatGPT, on Tuesday morning has been rectified.

Cloudflare spokesperson stated that there is no evidence indicating that the disruption was caused by malicious actions or a cyberattack. (AP)

A solution has been put in place, the firm stated in an update at approximately 9:45 a.m. ET, adding that they are confident that the issue is now resolved. Cloudflare further mentioned that they are actively monitoring for any errors to guarantee that all services have returned to normal.

“We detected a surge in atypical traffic directed to one of Cloudflare's services starting at 11:20 UTC. This resulted in some traffic traversing Cloudflare's network encountering errors,” the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters. “We have mobilized all resources to ensure that all traffic is processed without errors.”

Also Read: Is X down right now? Users report issues amid Cloudflare, OpenAI outages

Was Cloudflare outage a cyberattack?

The spokesperson stated that there is no evidence indicating that the disruption was caused by malicious actions or a cyberattack.

“Given the importance of Cloudflare’s services, any outage is unacceptable,” the spokesperson stated. “We apologize to our customers and the internet in general for letting you down today.”

The web infrastructure company announced shortly before 7 a.m. ET this morning that it was “investigating” an issue which may affect multiple customers, and was taking steps to resolve the problem.

As reported by Downdetector.com, a site that monitors internet outages, users of X, ChatGPT, and the video game League of Legends experienced connectivity problems around the same time Cloudflare experienced its outage.

This outage occurs approximately one month after a significant disruption at Amazon Web Services affected the online operations of many of the internet's most widely used applications and websites.

Also Read: Is AWS down again? Outage reports spike as Cloudflare problems hit websites around the world

Cloudflare outage: What all was affected?

Some of NJ Transit’s digital services were affected by the outage.

OpenAI’s status page reported that ChatGPT and its Sora short-form video application had completely recovered after encountering issues caused by a “third-party service provider,” CNBC reported.

A spokesperson for Cloudflare stated that the “root cause” of the outage was an automatically generated configuration file intended to manage threat traffic, which “grew beyond an expected size of entries,” leading to a crash in the software system responsible for handling traffic for multiple services.

The company noted that it began to notice a “spike in unusual traffic” at approximately 5:20 a.m. ET.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shweta Kukreti
Shweta Kukreti has over 8 years of experience in covering Indian and world politics. She joined the Hindustan Times in 2024 and is primarily assigned to the US desk. She currently works as Deputy Chief Content Producer and reports on a wide range of topics, including US politics, immigration issues (especially H-1B visa) and major global events. Shweta strongly emphasizes team operations, which encompasses monitoring news, delegating tasks, editing, developing comprehensive coverage strategies, and crafting engaging, and data-informed narratives. She received the Digi Star Award at the Hindustan Times within a year of joining for her broad coverage of US politics. In 2025, she earned both a promotion and a redesignation, a significant achievement recognising her contributions and the strong value she brings to the team. She has previously worked with the Indian Express, HTDS, ANI and Republic World. Seniors in all the media organisations recognised her work. Regarding education, she earned a BA (Hons.) in Political Science and a master's degree from Delhi University, and she pursued a PG Diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Institution of Mass Communication (IIMC). She also holds a diploma in Women's Empowerment and Development from IGNOU University and a French certification course from Alliance Française de Delhi. If not working, you can find her exploring the hills and engaging in adventurous activities in Rishikesh and Himachal Pradesh. She loves to play badminton, volleyball, and chess, and spend time with her friends and family. She also enjoys spiritual activities.Read More

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