Massive Internet Outage Shuts Down Major Websites

This may make you feel a little more vulnerable to know that earlier today, a widespread internet outage took down a number of major websites including Amazon, UPS, and Southwest Airlines and also impacted PlayStation, Fidelity, FedEx, UPS, Home Depot, Disney, and more.

Most of the impacted websites have come back online since the outage.

The cause remains unknown. In a statement..."Akamai global content delivery network confirmed a widespread issue to its Edge DNS service which happened at 12:09 p.m. ET and that they are aware of an emerging issue with the Edge DNS service.

It was just last month that a major outage hit Fastly and took down some of the world’s top websites. The company blamed the outage on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting.

When that outage took place back on June 8th, Nick Rockwell, Fastly's Senior vice president of engineering and infrastructure said in a blog..."We experienced a global outage due to an undiscovered software bug that surfaced when it was triggered by a valid customer configuration change. He said the outage was broad and severe but the company quickly identified, isolated and disabled the problem and after 49 minutes, most of its network was up and running again. The bug had been included in a software update that was rolled out in May and Rockwell said the company is trying to figure out why it wasn’t detected during testing.

The incident highlighted how much of the global internet is dependent on a handful of behind-the-scenes companies like Fastly that provide vital infrastructure, and it amplified concerns about how vulnerable they are to more serious disruption.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

When these outages can shut down major day to day business operations, you've got to wonder what's next. We would love for you to leave a comment.

Get our free mobile app