The Cloudflare Outage: Understanding the Impacts and Lessons Learned
On November 18, 2025, a significant disruption occurred at Cloudflare, causing numerous websites worldwide to go offline. As a business owner or decision-maker, it’s critical to understand the implications of such outages on your operations. In this blog post, I’ll break down what happened, the lessons we can learn, and how to prepare your business for similar incidents in the future.
This outage was not caused by a cyber attack, as initially suspected by Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince. Instead, it stemmed from a change to the company’s database system permissions that inadvertently affected its Bot Management feature. This incident serves as a valuable case study in cloud service management and the importance of robust infrastructure. Let’s dive deeper into the specifics of this outage and what it means for businesses in Denmark and beyond.
Understanding the Incident
Cloudflare’s service outage on November 18 was a wake-up call for many businesses that rely on its global network. Initially, the team suspected a DDoS attack was behind the issues, which only added to the anxiety of affected users. However, after troubleshooting, the team pinpointed the true cause—a change in a configuration file that triggered a series of HTTP 5xx error codes, disrupting service for clients relying on the Bot Management system.
The Role of Bot Management
Cloudflare’s Bot Management feature protects websites by using machine learning to assess and score bot requests. When a bot crawls a site, the system determines whether to allow or block that request based on its scoring. This is especially crucial for website owners concerned about AI companies using their content unlawfully. The outage highlighted how interdependent systems can lead to widespread failure, affecting thousands of sites across Europe.
Lessons for Businesses
This incident offers critical insights that all businesses should consider:
- Redundancy is Key: Ensure that your systems have redundancies in place to avoid complete service disruption.
- Communication is Vital: Stay updated with your service providers, and ensure you have ways to communicate with your customers during outages.
- Monitor Dependencies: Understand how changes in one system can affect your overall technology stack, particularly if you rely on third-party services.
Building Resilience with Custom Solutions
At Best Choice, we specialize in creating custom-built digital solutions that can enhance your operational resilience. Whether you run a café, warehouse, online store, or clinic, we can tailor systems to integrate seamlessly with existing platforms while providing the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.
For example, a booking service we worked with faced challenges when their scheduling software went offline. By integrating a custom API that interacted with multiple booking platforms, we ensured they could continue accepting appointments regardless of the primary system’s status. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and protects revenue.
The Importance of Backups
Having a backup and recovery plan is paramount. For instance, consider a retailer that relies heavily on an e-commerce platform’s uptime—any outage could lead to significant revenue loss. By implementing cloud backups and recovery solutions, we can ensure that data remains safe and transactions can continue through alternative channels.
Enhancing Your Website’s Performance
Cloudflare is popular not just for its DDoS protection but also for its performance enhancements. However, diversifying your website’s infrastructure can shield you from vendor lock-in. Implement strategies that incorporate multiple content delivery networks (CDNs) or utilize tools supporting fallback systems if your primary provider experiences an outage.
Conclusion
The recent Cloudflare outage shines a light on the vulnerabilities present even within large, well-established cloud services. By understanding the lessons learned from this incident, business owners can take proactive steps to safeguard their operations against future disruptions. At Best Choice, we invite you to discuss how our custom digital solutions can bolster your business’s resilience and enhance operational efficiency. Don’t wait for an outage—let us help you prepare today!
