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No, Facebook and Instagram's blackout wasn't a cyberattack

In this image, someone holds a phone up to the camera and three apps are displayed: WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.
Photo: Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Not everything is a cyberattack. Facebook fended off rumors that an outage of its products Wednesday night, including Facebook and Instagram, was the result of a DDoS attack.

Meanwhile: Telegram reports gaining 3 million users during the brief outages of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

NetScout issued a press release claiming the outage was a BGP leak, but after experts (including, apparently, the NetScout employee quoted in the press release) said that wasn't the case, NetScout walked back the certainty of its claims.

What they're saying:

  • "Absent more forensic evidence, we can't speculate about the cause of that specific outage," NetScout said via email.
  • "Yesterday, as a result of a server configuration change, many people had trouble accessing our apps and services. We've now resolved the issues and our systems are recovering," Facebook said via Twitter on Thursday.

Go deeper: Facebook’s pivot to encrypted messaging is bigger than privacy

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