The world witnessed one of its most disruptive internet outages in recent years as a critical glitch at Cloudflare — the backbone of global web traffic — pushed thousands of websites and apps into sudden darkness. For nearly 20 minutes, digital services across continents froze, leaving users unable to access essential platforms.
India felt the shockwave sharply. At the peak of morning market activity, leading online brokerage apps Groww, Upstox, and Zerodha crashed simultaneously, preventing traders from logging in, placing orders, or monitoring positions.
What Went Wrong? Cloudflare’s Global Network Stumbles During Upgrade
Cloudflare — the US-based company powering a huge chunk of the world’s internet — suffered a core configuration failure during a system upgrade. The glitch broke the routing that connects millions of devices to thousands of websites.
Cloudflare normally operates over 300+ global data centers, ensuring websites load fast and stay protected from cyberattacks. When its backbone malfunctioned, websites relying on Cloudflare lost their link to the internet entirely.
The result:
A rapid, worldwide chain reaction of outages.
India Hit Hard: Trading Apps Collapse Mid-Market
The outage couldn’t have come at a worse time for India: active trading hours.
Charts froze
Logins failed
Orders got stuck
Open positions couldn’t be exited
Frustrated traders flooded X with complaints:
“Market moving. Apps not. Worst nightmare for intraday traders.”
Several feared heavy losses as volatility demanded fast action — but apps stayed unresponsive.
The 20-Minute Blackout That Felt Like an Hour
Outage trackers showed Cloudflare services began failing globally and stayed down for nearly 20 minutes.
Cloudflare issued a rapid preliminary statement:
“A technical error during a scheduled upgrade affected global services. Our teams immediately isolated and resolved the issue.”
Within minutes, digital platforms across Asia, Europe and the US began returning online.
Global Impact: Social, E-commerce, Payments, Gaming All Disrupted
This was not an India-only crisis. Major international platforms temporarily collapsed, including:
Discord
Shopify
Binance
Twitch
Several global payment gateways
Businesses dependent on real-time digital connectivity saw abrupt shutdowns.
The outage exposed the fragile dependency of the global digital economy on a handful of infrastructure providers.
Market Experts Warn: ‘Digital Dependency Is a Double-Edged Sword’
Analysts said such incidents highlight the need for:
Backup systems
Alternative routing
Offline trading protocols
Reduced dependency on single network providers
A Mumbai-based market strategist said:
“The outage proves our digital infrastructure has a single point of failure. One error — and half the world goes offline.”
Regulatory bodies in India are expected to seek detailed incident reports from affected fintech platforms.
Cyber Experts: ‘A Perfect Reminder of Internet Fragility’
Cybersecurity specialists noted that outages like this — though rare — emphasize the risks of global digital interdependence.
“One flawed update in one company can cripple half the internet,”
said a Singapore-based researcher.
Cloudflare Fully Restores Operations; Audit Underway
By late morning, Cloudflare confirmed full service restoration across all regions and announced a forensic audit to ensure a similar outage never occurs again.
Trading platforms resumed operations soon after, but the incident has left behind a powerful warning:
In a world run by the internet, even 20 minutes of silence can cause chaos.
