Why Did Cloudflare Crash? What is it?

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">In today's internet age, data collection has become a crucial tool for many industries, including e-commerce, finance, brand marketing, and data analysis. However, a common headache in data collection is:</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Why is my data collection always blocked by Cloudflare?</strong></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Why are some websites suddenly inaccessible? Is my network overloaded?</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Especially recently (November 18, 2025), Cloudflare experienced what was described as an "epic" global outage, directly causing a massive disruption to numerous internet services. </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Today, we'll discuss the following questions:</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">1. What is Cloudflare?</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">2. Why Did Cloudflare Crash?</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">3. Lessons Learned from the Cloudflare Crash</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">I. What is Cloudflare? Why is it so important?</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare is one of the world's largest website acceleration, protection, and CDN networks. </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">In other words, Cloudflare is a "website firewall + accelerator + security guard."</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare's main functions include:</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Accelerating website access (CDN caching)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Defending against DDoS attacks</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Blocking malicious crawlers and spam traffic</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Hiding server IPs</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Managing API requests</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Why do almost all websites rely on it?</span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"> Because it's inexpensive, easy to use, and the only advanced protection method that small and medium-sized enterprises can afford.</strong><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"> Not only websites, but also some large platforms, AI tools (like ChatGPT, Perplexity), game services, and social platforms use it.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">II. What is Cloudflare's Bot Management?</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Among Cloudflare's protection measures, one is particularly troublesome for web crawlers: Bot Management (Anti-Crawler System).</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">It is responsible for distinguishing:</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Good bots (such as the Google search engine)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Bad bots (attacks, malicious crawling, bulk requests)</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare determines whether you are a "bot" based on</span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"> IP reputation, browser fingerprints, behavioral patterns, request frequency, JavaScript execution, and verification challenges </strong><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">(such as CAPTCHAs, human-machine tests), etc. If it perceives you as a bot, it will block access, return 403/5xx errors, require human verification, and continuously blacklist your IP. This is why many people are frequently rejected by Cloudflare when conducting data collection.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">III. November 18, 2025: Cloudflare Global Outage</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A core module of Cloudflare malfunctioned, rendering all access traffic unprocessable. Numerous websites worldwide returned </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">5xx errors </strong><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">(internal server errors). Users thought their websites were down, but in reality, Cloudflare itself crashed.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare stated that this global outage stemmed from </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">a misconfiguration in the Bot Management module</strong><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">, causing the core proxy to fail to load critical dependencies and crash completely. With the proxy layer paralyzed, all requests returned 5xx errors, resulting in widespread unavailability of global customer service.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Although the problem originated from a routine database permission adjustment, due to severe internal system coupling, a small error was quickly amplified and propagated to the proxy module, triggering a network-wide outage. </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">This was Cloudflare's largest incident since 2019.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Some even joked: Cloudflare programmers wanted to ask ChatGPT for help fixing it, but ChatGPT also crashed and became inaccessible because of Cloudflare.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">IV. What does this Cloudflare outage tell us?</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">1. Core systems cannot be overly coupled.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A small configuration change can cause a global shutdown. Future architectures must be more isolated and secure.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p>2.&nbsp; <strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Systems that are "good enough to run" will eventually fail.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The more technical debt accumulates, the more vulnerable the system becomes.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">3. Cloudflare is already the strongest, but it can still crash.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Not because of inferior technology, but because the world is too reliant on it. There are virtually no alternatives in the short term.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">V. How to bypass Cloudflare's protection?</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The following methods are applicable to legitimate uses, such as cross-border business, data research, and brand analytics.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Method 1: Use High-Quality Proxy IPs (Most Effective Method)</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare prioritizes: IP cleanliness, lack of negative records, IP originating from a real region, and the normality and stability of requests.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Therefore: 👉 </span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Using clean, stable, and trustworthy proxies is crucial.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">High-purity residential IPs, multi-region nodes, stability (making them less likely to be flagged as malicious by Cloudflare), high speed, and low latency, provided by services</span><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"> like B2Proxy, effectively reduce the probability of triggering Cloudflare blocking.</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">If you are frequently blocked, this is usually due to too many people using public proxies, blacklisted data center IPs, poor IP quality, or overly "robot-like" request patterns. High-quality proxies can directly solve most of these problems.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Method 2: Comply with the Website's Robots.txt</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Robots.txt is a set of "friendly rules" provided by the website for "good robots," telling you which pages can be crawled and which cannot. Benefits of adhering to Robots.txt:</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">✔ Enhanced security</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">✔ Less likely to be flagged as malicious by Cloudflare</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">✔ Reduced risk of being banned. While malicious crawlers won't comply, adhering to Robots.txt makes Cloudflare more "friendly" to compliant data collection.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Method 3: Simulate Real User Behavior</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare monitors: request frequency, page dwell time, whether JavaScript is executed, mouse behavior (on some websites), and whether bot-like access patterns appear.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Therefore, please be sure to:</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Slow down access speed</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Control request frequency</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Add random delays</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Simulate browser behavior</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Use real fingerprints and headers whenever possible.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A real user cannot access 100 pages per second, so crawlers cannot do the same.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><h2><span style="color: rgb(26, 26, 26);">VI. Summary</span></h2><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cloudflare is a crucial cornerstone of the internet, responsible for accelerating and protecting the security of numerous websites worldwide.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Its protection is strong, and it is often quite strict for ordinary crawlers or bulk access. However, by using the correct methods, you can still securely and compliantly complete access or data scraping, for example:</span></p><p><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Use a high-quality B2Proxy proxy</strong></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Comply with Robots.txt</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">● Simulate real user behavior</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">These methods can effectively reduce the risk of being blocked by Cloudflare.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">This global outage further reminds us that even the most robust systems are not immune to errors. The key lies in improving architectural resilience and risk isolation capabilities.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">&nbsp;</span></p>