Internet Outage Affects Multiple Websites Including Akamai, Amazon, and Google; 911 Services Go Down

After Akamai, a content distribution firm suffered a "disruption" in its DNS system on Thursday, multiple numbers of websites went down.

Websites Affected by the Internet Outages

According to DownDector, websites for Amazon, Google, Verizon, Delta, HBO Max, Airbnb, AT&T Fidelity, FedEx, UPS, Southwest Airlines, HomeDepot, and others may have been affected throughout the nation, particularly in major areas such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

In a recently published article in FOX News, on Thursday, the internet outage monitoring website DownDetector.com reported connection problems affecting content delivery and cloud service provider Akamai, which claimed a cyber assault did not cause this disruption.

The website disruptions that some Akamai clients experienced were caused by a problem in the DNS system that was triggered by a software upgrade, according to a tweet from the firm on Thursday afternoon. According to the firm, the disruption lasted up to an hour, and Akamai was able to fix the problem by reversing the software upgrade.

911 Services Went Down

Outages impacting 911 lines and phone systems were also reported in many counties and communities throughout the southwest and central Virginia, according to a published report in Newsweek. As authorities in the impacted regions dealt with the problems, they routed people to alternate phone numbers to contact in the event of an emergency.

Rockbridge, Campbell, Wythe, Grayson, and Carroll counties in Virginia were among those impacted by 911 outages on Thursday. Amherst County, North Carolina, also stated Thursday afternoon that 911 lines were down and that people should call from their landlines.

After the disruptions, most have reported that 911 lines are back in service or are beginning to come back online. Cut fiber cables caused disruptions in Grayson County, Halifax County, and Amherst County, according to officials, as per The Washington Post.

Akamai Technologies Clarifies the Cause of the Outage

In a recently published news article in Daily Mail, according to the hosting company responsible for the outage, the significant internet outage impacting major retail, banking, logistics, and travel websites were not caused by a cyberattack.

In a statement, Akamai Technologies, a worldwide content delivery network, stated that a software upgrade caused a fault in its DNS service, which resulted in the outages; the glitch was not caused by a hack. The website disruptions that some Akamai clients experienced were caused by a problem in the DNS system triggered by a software upgrade, according to a tweet from the firm on Thursday afternoon.

Akamai owns and operates a worldwide network of servers. It leases out to clients who desire their websites to load quicker by distributing information from nearby locations to end-users. A second major internet outage was blamed on a similar problem with one of Akamai's rivals, Fastly, last month.

Furthermore, Oracle said it was monitoring a worldwide problem involving a cloud-based DNS solution provider affecting access to a wide range of internet sites, including its cloud services. According to Down Detector, about 3,500 people reported difficulties with Airbnb's website, while almost 1,500 users reported issues with Home Depot.