On March 6th, Reuters reported that account holders of Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta Group, were able to use the platforms again after they were down for more than two hours due to a technical issue that affected hundreds of thousands of users worldwide.
Meta stock falls
According to several accounts on social media platform X, as recorded by Reuters, the outage occurred around 3 PM GMT on March 5th (10 PM Vietnam time). At that time, Facebook and Instagram accounts were suddenly logged out and could not be logged back in. According to statistics from the outage tracking website Downdetector.com, at the peak of the outage, there were over 550,000 reports of Facebook disruptions, while the number for Instagram was 92,000.
“There was a technical issue that caused people difficulty accessing some of our services. We have resolved this issue for those affected,” Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, announced regarding the disruption on the X social network without specifying the details of the problem. According to Downdetector, other Meta-owned social networks, WhatsApp and Threads, also experienced similar but less severe issues.
According to CNN, outages on major platforms (which rarely happen) are usually the result of a "benign" incident, such as a software update. In 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for nearly six hours, an outage that Meta assured users was not due to "malicious activity." Most recently, at the end of last month, users of the US telecommunications carrier AT&T (with 100 million customers) also experienced a network outage, preventing many customers from making calls, sending messages, or accessing the internet. The incident prompted several US security agencies to investigate whether it was a cyberattack. However, a few hours later, AT&T announced that it had fully restored service.
Meanwhile, the White House said it is continuing to monitor the Meta disruption. According to The Guardian, the incident coincided with Super Tuesday, when millions of Americans were voting in the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries. A spokesperson for the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said: “At this time, we are not aware of any connection to the election or any specific malicious activity.”
According to the Daily Mail, Meta's stock value fell 1.5% in afternoon trading on March 5th (US time). Citing Dan Ives, CEO of Wedbush Securities, the Daily Mail reported that billionaire Mark Zuckerberg lost approximately $100 million in just under two hours after Meta's social media platforms experienced outages. Mark Zuckerberg's net worth decreased by 1.56% (equivalent to a drop of $2.7 billion). Currently, the Meta owner holds $171.9 billion and is the fourth richest person in the world .
Cyberattacks cause significant damage.
While the cause of Meta's outage remains unclear, cyberattacks continue to occur worldwide. Most recently, on March 5th, the Canadian Financial Intelligence Agency (FINTRAC), which monitors illegal banking transactions, announced that its systems had been temporarily shut down due to a network outage that began over the weekend. Although details of the incident are still unclear, FINTRAC stated that it is working closely with federal partners, including the Cyber Security Centre of Canada, to protect and restore system functionality.
FINTRAC is a financial transaction and reporting analysis center (a Canadian government agency) established to detect and investigate money laundering and similar crimes. The target of this agency is the latest development in a series of recent cyberattacks targeting Canadian federal agencies, following a cyberattack on the Canadian Royal Police (RCMP) late last month.
Cyberattacks consistently inflict significant damage. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the estimated damage from cyberattacks in 2023 was approximately $8 trillion. The International Monetary Fund's 2023 World Economic Outlook projected global GDP at $105 trillion. Therefore, the damage from cyberattacks in 2023 accounted for 8% of the world's GDP. Research institutions, non-governmental organizations, and universities remain prime targets, as threat groups seem to view these as easier initial access points to learn about a country's policies, science, and technology community.
Common forms of cyberattacks include identity theft, phishing attacks, malware, business email compromise, and denial-of-service attacks. It can be said that cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important in the context of growing cyber threats.
Compiled by MINH CHÂU
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