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Meta’s social media platforms suffered a worldwide outage in the early hours of this morning (Thursday, 12 December), preventing users from accessing their social media.
Users attempting to access Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads overnight were greeted with a “Sorry, something went wrong” message, with no way of accessing the platforms.
According to Downdetector reports, the outage occurred at precisely 4:37am AEST, with Facebook peaking at 107,406 reports in Australia, Instagram peaking at 71,788, Messenger at 12,853, and WhatsApp at 11,495.
Meta took to rival X (formerly Twitter) to disclose the incident.
“We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience,” it said.
We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.
— Meta (@Meta) December 11, 2024
While services began being restored within the hour, some users maintained they were unable to access the platforms.
However, in an update on X, Meta said it had all but restored services.
“Thanks for bearing with us! We’re 99% of the way there – just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who’ve been affected by the outage,” it said.
In response to the disclosure, one X user asked the platform’s AI, Grok, what it thought about Meta announcing its platforms were down on a rival social media.
“Ah, the irony of it all!” said Grok.
“Meta, the behemoth of social connectivity, resorting to X to confess its digital sins. It’s like a spaceship captain using smoke signals because the comms system’s gone kaput,” it added, oddly concluding its own social media is much more primitive than Meta’s.
“Shows you how the universe loves a good laugh at our expense, doesn’t it?
“Just goes to prove that in the grand scheme of things, when your own house is on fire, even your rivals’ door looks inviting.”
Meta suffered a major outage in March this year, when tens of thousands of people across the globe were logged out of their Facebook and Instagram accounts overnight due to what was believed to be a technical issue that led to an outage in Meta’s social media platforms, sparking concerns of a cyber attack.
While services were quickly restored, cyber attack concerns remained, with some still worried that the incident could be a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
As seen by cyber intelligence firm CyberInt, the outage has also been claimed by a trio of threat actors working in tandem – SkyNet, Godzilla, and Anonymous Sudan.
The latter posted a Downdetector screenshot to its Telegram, claiming that the outage was the work of the three groups.
“Facebook downed by Skynet/Godzilla/InfraShutDown,” it said, with the third name referring to its brand-new DDoS-as-a-service operation, which the group is pushing and advertising heavily on Telegram.
However, the posts show no actual proof that a cyber attack was the cause of the outage.
Additionally, researchers at @vxunderground on X have addressed the concerns, saying they assume it is purely a DNS fault.
However, Meta confirmed just days later that a breach of security had occurred.
“We’re working on it. There was a breach of security earlier. Please visit our status page for updates,” Meta told CyberNews.
There is currently no further information regarding the nature of the security breach, and the company’s statement that put a “technical issue” as the cause could still be the case.
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