Study Finds Internet Outages Around the World Grew in 2023 From 2022

There's perhaps nothing more frustrating than losing internet connection. And if you think it's happening more frequently than it did before, you're not wrong.

Credits: Reuters

Cloudflare, an American connectivity cloud company, in its recently published Year in Review, found that the number of internet outages grew in 2023 compared to 2022. In the study, which explores internet insights and security trends, it was found that there were more than 180 Internet outages around the world in 2023, whereas 2022 only had 150.

Some of the outages were reportedly short, lasting only a couple of hours, while others have stretched on for multiple months.

Many of the past year's outages were attributed government-directed regional and national shutdowns of Internet connectivity. In the latter category, for example, localised government-directed shutdowns in Manipur, India and Amhara, Ethiopia have lasted over seven and four months respectively, as of early December.

Additionally, smartphones and tablets remain the main tools people use to go online, with over 40% of global traffic coming from mobile devices. In more than 80 countries, the majority of traffic comes from mobile devices.

"We all depend on the Internet and Cloudflare’s global network – one of the largest in the world – has evolved into a pillar of the critical infrastructure the digital world relies on," said Matthew Prince, CEO and Co-Founder of Cloudflare. "It is our responsibility to be transparent and share the data and perspectives from reports like our Year in Review to help keep the online world more informed, resilient and secure."

The data from the study comes from Cloudflare Radar, a free tool provided by the company that lets you view global trends and insights across the Internet. Radar is powered bydata from Cloudflare’s global network and aggregated and anonymised data from Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 public DNS Resolver, widely used as a fast and private way to browse the Internet.

The study also found that financial organisations are the most commonly targeted and attacked by threat actors. Google, meanwhile, is remains the most popular online service for the second year in a row. It's followed by Facebook, Apple and TikTok. As for the most popular social media platform, Facebook once again took the top spot, dethroning TikTok, which is now at second.

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• Cloudflare found found that the number of internet outages grew in 2023 compared to 2022.

• In the study, it was found that there were more than 180 Internet outages around the world in 2023, whereas 2022 only had 150.

• Many of the past year's outages were attributed government-directed regional and national shutdowns of Internet connectivity.