Disasters, shutdowns, and cable damage galore – Cloudflare study reveals what’s really been behind all the recent Internet outages
- Cloudflare tracked global internet outages from July to September across 125 countries
- Government-imposed blackouts remain among the most common causes of global disruption
- Iraq, Syria, and Sudan continued their annual shutdowns during national examination periods
Cloudflare’s Q3 Internet Disruptions 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 triggered by events ranging from natural disasters and cyberattacks to government-imposed restrictions and accidental cable damage.
Using data from its network that spans more than 330 cities across 125 countries, Cloudflare documented what it called “a wide variety of known causes” behind widespread service interruptions.
Government orders remains one of the biggest culprits
Internet blackouts imposed by state authorities remain one of the most frequent disruptions worldwide.
Iraq, Syria, and Sudan once again shut down online access during national exam periods, a practice that has become routine in these regions.
Officials in Syria even claimed success in targeting “organized exam cheating networks,” suggesting that such outages were part of a broader enforcement strategy.
Elsewhere, Venezuela saw a more unusual case when provider SuperCable was ordered offline after losing its license, cutting connectivity for thousands of users in mid-August.
Cloudflare described these cases as consistent with previous patterns of short, repeated, and localized restrictions.
The report shows how easily physical networks can fail by chance or neglect. A stray bullet in Texas damaged a fiber line, causing a two-hour outage for Spectrum users.
In the Dominican Republic and Angola, construction work severed cables, halting connections for hours.
Similar problems appeared in Pakistan, Haiti, and the United Arab Emirates, where simultaneous Red Sea cable cuts brought cross-country traffic to a standstill.
Cloudflare’s findings suggest that no amount of routing optimization or firewall management can offset the weaknesses of physical infrastructure once it is damaged.
Natural and accidental disasters added to the quarter’s turmoil. In Egypt, a fire at the Ramses Central Exchange cut off major providers such as Vodafone and Orange.
An 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula crippled regional traffic almost instantly.
Even space-based services were affected. Starlink reported a global outage on July 24 after “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.”
Global internet access remains vulnerable to a range of threats, from cyberattacks to the limits of basic infrastructure. Outages can result from the most unexpected sources.
Cloudflare noted that its summary “is not an exhaustive or complete list,” yet the evidence points to one clear reality: the global network may be vast, yet it remains breakable.
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Cloudflare tracked global internet outages from July to September across 125 countries Government-imposed blackouts remain among the most common causes of global disruption Iraq, Syria, and Sudan continued their annual shutdowns during national examination periods Cloudflare’s Q3 Internet Disruptions report paints a troubling picture of how fragile global connectivity remains,…
