Cloudflare, an internet management company, experienced a widespread outage that affected popular sites like X, Spotify and ChatGPT on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

A fix has been implemented and Cloudflare believes the outage is resolved, the company said in a status update just before 10 a.m. ET.

"We are continuing to monitor for errors to ensure all services are back to normal," the update said.

Cloudflare said it "saw a spike in unusual traffic" to one of its services around 5:20 a.m. EST, according to a statement obtained by USA TODAY.

"That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare's network to experience errors. We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic. We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic," the statement said.

What is Cloudflare?

Cloudfare is an internet management company that provides a range of services, including cybersecurity, Domain Name Service (translates readable website names into IP addresses) and wide area network service (WAN), which connects local area networks to a large geographical area, like a city or even country.

Cloudfare was founded by Matthew Prince, Lee Holloway and Michelle Zatlyn in 2009, according to the company's website.

The platform initially began in 2004 as a tech company called Honey Pot, dedicated solely to tracking email spam. By 2009, the three founders had created a new business plan and prototype to not only track internet treats but stop them, the company website continues.

Today, Cloudflare serves more than 125 countries with about 330 data centers online, the website states.

What websites were down during the Cloudflare outage?

According to Downdetector, the following websites were reporting increased outages on Nov. 18:

  • Amazon
  • Canva
  • DoorDash
  • Google Store
  • Grindr
  • Indeed
  • League of Legends
  • OpenAI
  • Spotify
  • Square
  • X, formerly Twitter
  • Uber
  • Zoom

Editor's note: This story has been updated to fix a time.

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Story idea? Email her at gcross@usatoday.com.

Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at melina.khan@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is Cloudflare? Internet service outage affects X, Spotify and ChatGPT

Reporting by Greta Cross and Melina Khan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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