Users were locked out of websites Friday due to an outage with web infrastructure giant Clouflare.
Angela Lang/CNET
Several websites became unavailable Friday after Cloudflare experienced outages in parts of its network. The affected system, called a DNS resolver, connects web users to the right websites when they type in a URL. Those affected reportedly include websites for Shopify, Politico, Discord and League of Legends, according to TechCrunch.
In an incident report, Cloudflare said the outage wasn’t the result of an attack. “We believe we have addressed the root cause and are monitoring systems for stability now,” the company said in the report. The outage appears to have lasted for about 30 minutes.
Cloudflare is a major player in the world of web infrastructure, helping secure websites from attacks that can take them offline, as well as routing a huge volume of internet traffic. The company’s 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver service helps connect web users to websites by translating the site’s URL into a specific location on the web, called an IP address.
When that process breaks down, a user’s web browser can’t navigate to the website. Internet Service Providers can also make these connections, and Google runs its own DNS resolver called 8.8.8.8.
Cloudflare didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details.