- Cloudflare tracked global internet outages from July to September in 125 countries
- Government-imposed blackouts remain among the most common causes of global disruption
- Iraq, Syria and Sudan continued their annual lockdowns during national exam periods.
Cloudflare's Q3 Internet Outages Report paints a troubling picture of how fragile global connectivity remains, even in an era of advanced networking and sophisticated DDoS protection.
Between July and September 2025, the company tracked outages caused by events ranging from natural disasters and cyber attacks to government-imposed restrictions and accidental cable damage.
Using data from its network spanning more than 330 cities in 125 countries, Cloudflare documented what it called “a wide variety of known causes” behind the widespread service outages.
Government orders remain one of the biggest culprits
Internet shutdowns imposed by state authorities remain one of the most frequent interruptions around the world.
Iraq, Syria and Sudan once again closed online access during national exam periods, a practice that has become routine in these regions.
Officials in Syria even claimed to have been successful in targeting “organized exam cheating networks,” suggesting that such disruptions were part of a broader law enforcement strategy.
Elsewhere, Venezuela saw a more unusual case when provider SuperCable was taken offline after losing its license, cutting connectivity for thousands of users in mid-August.
Cloudflare described these cases as consistent with previous patterns of brief, repeated and localized restrictions.
The report shows how easily physical networks can fail due to chance or negligence. A stray bullet in Texas damaged a fiber line, causing a two-hour power outage for Spectrum users.
In the Dominican Republic and Angola, construction sites cut cables and disrupted connections for hours.
Similar problems emerged in Pakistan, Haiti and the United Arab Emirates, where simultaneous cable cuts in the Red Sea paralyzed traffic across the country.
Cloudflare's findings suggest that no amount of routing optimization or firewall management can compensate for the weaknesses of physical infrastructure once it is damaged.
Natural and accidental disasters added to the turmoil of the quarter. In Egypt, a fire at the Ramses Central Stock Exchange left major providers such as Vodafone and Orange out of service.
An 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula paralyzed regional traffic almost instantly.
Even space services were affected. Starlink reported a global outage on July 24 after “a failure in key internal software services that operate the core network.”
Global Internet access remains vulnerable to a variety of threats, from cyber attacks to the limits of basic infrastructure. Outages can come from the most unexpected sources.
Cloudflare noted that its summary is “not an exhaustive or complete list,” but the evidence points to a clear reality: The global network may be vast, but it remains fragile.
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