Cloudflare Bot Management Configuration Error Causes Global Internet Outage
On 18 November 2025, Cloudflare's Bot Management system experienced a configuration error that caused a global internet outage affecting approximately 20 percent of traffic, including services like ChatGPT and X. The incident resulted from a malformed database query that generated excessive duplicate data, exceeding memory limits and disabling the core proxy system.
What happened
On 18 November 2025, Cloudflare experienced a configuration error in its Bot Management system. A malformed query to the ClickHouse database generated excessive duplicate data, causing the configuration file to exceed memory limits and disable the core proxy system that processes customer traffic.
Reported impact
The outage affected approximately 20 percent of global internet traffic and impacted services including ChatGPT, X, and Downdetector. Customers using Bot Management's generated bot score in their rules began blocking legitimate traffic, while those not using the function remained online.
Index analysis
Cloudflare stated the incident was unrelated to DNS, cyberattacks, or new generative AI systems, but resulted from internal configuration update logic in Bot Management. The company identified four remediation steps: enhanced configuration file processing, expanded kill switches for features, prevention of core dumps overwhelming systems, and review of failure modes in key proxy modules.
Governance controls
Cloudflare described this as the largest incident since 2019. The company announced it would strengthen handling of configuration files, expand global kill switches for functionality, prevent error reports from overloading systems, and review failure modes in critical proxy modules.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.