The opening months of this year have witnessed significant disruptions to global internet infrastructure, revealing the surprising vulnerability of technologies that form the backbone of our online world, according to new analysis from Cloudflare.

From damage to vital submarine cables to cyber-attacks and power outages, Cloudflare’s Q1 2025 internet disruption summary shows that digital disturbances have exposed critical weaknesses in the systems that we rely on daily, and that better disaster preparedness will be key to ensuring continued stability.

Submarine cables, which carry more than 95% of international data through fibre optics crisscrossing the ocean floor, have once again proven to be uniquely vulnerable.

Last year saw multiple incidents of damaged subsea cables, including off the coast of South Africa, disrupting connectivity in multiple East African countries, and a mysterious incident in the Baltic Sea in which a Russian-flagged ship allegedly dragged its anchor across four submerged fibre optic cables linking Finland to Estonia.

This year has already seen more of the same. Syria faced a major disruption in January when two vital fibre optic cables were sabotaged, causing near-total internet outages for several hours and leaving the country’s telecom’s network unreachable. 

Another incident saw a major submarine cable near Qatar being damaged, leading to reduced bandwidth and increased latency affecting Pakistan’s 111 million internet users. 

The damage forced traffic to reroute through other cables, with Cloudflare’s report noting that connection diversity and backup systems are essential to mitigate the impact of such failures, especially in unstable regions.

Cybersecurity also remains a major concern, particularly as geopolitical tensions escalate.

In Russia, a series of cyberattacks claimed by Ukrainian hackers caused significant network disruptions, leading to widespread outages for internet provider Nodex.

The ‘complete failure’ of the Nodex network saw internet traffic dropping to zero for most of a day, with the Ukrainian hacktivists claiming on Telegram they had ‘completely looted and wiped’ the St. Petersburg-based provider, leaving them no data and no backups.

There have been more reports since of Russia strangling its own mobile internet speeds to thwart Ukrainian drone attacks on the border, with Russia saying it would completely shut down traffic at night due to security concerns. 

Although so far this year, cyber-attacks on online infrastructure are fairly limited, mostly related to the Ukrainian conflict, these instances still highlight the vulnerability of national infrastructure to ongoing cyber threats, particularly in politically sensitive regions where the risk of state-sponsored cyber-attacks is high.

However, Cloudflare’s report shows that it’s not human interference that has caused some of the biggest internet outages this year. 

Severe weather events and natural disasters have hit internet stability hard. Storm Éowyn wreaked havoc on Ireland in late January, with traffic falling by 75%, while an earthquake saw the French-run island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean lose online access for several days, effectively cutting it off at a time when the coordination of aid was essential.

Meanwhile, avalanches caused one of the largest internet providers in Georgia to experience  complete outage earlier this year, and another huge 7.7 earthquake saw traffic plummet in Myanmar last month.

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Perhaps some of the most high-profile damage was felt in America, however, where raging wildfires caused traffic to drop over 50% across at least thirteen Los Angeles neighborhoods.

In the weeks that followed, traffic remained significantly lower than before the fires, reflecting the devastation in those areas, but recovered soon after. Although that could have much to do with the level of investment involved in recovery efforts, it still shows that government’s around the world should be better prepared in the event of outages caused by natural disaster.

The events of Q1 2025 are evidence of an internet that is increasingly vulnerable to both natural and man-made disruptions, with more investment in resilient technologies, enhanced cybersecurity, and improved disaster preparedness essential to help ensure that the internet continues to function smoothly.