Cloudflare has released its Q2 Internet Disruptions report, detailing the impacts and causes of Internet outages around the world. Over the last quarter, Cloudflare observed government-directed shutdowns in several countries, the impact of a massive power outage in Spain and Portugal, and a cyberattack against a Russian provider that sent the network offline.
Overseeing roughly 25% of the world’s Internet and operating in over 125 countries, Cloudflare has a bird bird’s-eye view of how the Internet is functioning at a global level. Sharing top highlights from Q2 below:
- Return of government-directed shutdowns: In our Q1 2025 summary post, we noted that we had not observed any government-directed Internet shutdowns during the quarter. Unfortunately, that forward progress was short-lived — in the second quarter of 2025, we observed shutdowns in Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Panama.
- Massive power outage in Portugal & Spain led to an Internet outage: The big power outage story during the second quarter was the massive outage across much of Portugal and Spain on April 28. In both countries, Internet traffic dropped as the power grid failed.
- Major DDoS attack takes Russian network offline: Russian Internet provider ASVT (AS8752) was reportedly targeted by a major DDoS attack that resulted in a multi-day complete Internet outage. This follows a similar attack targeting Russian provider Nodex (AS29329) in March, which also caused a complete service outage.
- Fiber optic cable damage in Haiti and Malawi: Both countries experienced damage to fiber optic cables this quarter, with accompanying partial or complete network outages.