Global Web Outage Knocks Out Major Websites

Hundreds of websites worldwide are down this morning - with Amazon, Spotify and Amazon all experiencing issues. Millions of users across the globe have reported problems trying to access web pages, with Netflix, Twitch, and Pinterest also affected by the outage. While the reason for the crash remains unclear, it is likely the issue is with Fastly - a content delivery network (CDN) company that helps users view digital content more quickly. 

Daily Mail: The day the internet broke: Hundreds of websites worldwide including CNN, NYTimes, Amazon and Reddit go DOWN after outage at US server company Fastly 

* Amazon Web Services, Spotify, CNN, PayPal, Reddit and others all went down on Tuesday morning suddenly 

* It was caused by an outage at Fastly, the Content Distribution Network (CDN) used by millions of businesses 

* A CDN is a network of global servers that work together to provide faster internet loading speeds

* Many websites use them because they allow a quick transfer of HTML pages, javascript files, stylesheets, images, and videos 

* Fastly said the outage was caused by a service configuration that triggered the 'disruptions' - they've now disabled the configuration, they say 

* The company won't say what the service configuration was, or if they initiated it 

* Most of the websites were back online within a few hours of the shortage 

Hundreds of websites around the world went down this morning including CNN, The New York Times, Amazon, Shopify, PayPal, Reddit, the White House and British Government websites after a 'service configuration' at their server provider Fastly triggered mass outages. 

It's unclear what the configuration was or whether or not Fastly intended for it to happen but it took three hours for it to be resolved, during which time government websites, media outlets and online shopping sites experienced huge problems. 

The company won't say what the configuration is, or if they deliberately initiated it.  

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Update #1: Global glitch: Swaths of internet go down after cloud outage (AP)  

Update #2: Websites rumble back to life after Fastly-linked outage (Reuters)  

WNU Editor: A sobering incident that reminds all of us on how vulnerable the internet really is.