A Faulty Configuration Led to Facebook's Global Outage

Faten Elwan

Technology

7th October 2021

A Faulty Configuration Led to Facebook's Global Outage

The Claim

A 13-year-old Chinese hacker named Sun Jisu was behind the global Facebook outage.

News posted on

Alwafd News

سما الإخبارية

The Sun Reporters

Emerging story

Social media users and news websites claimed a 13-year-old Chinese hacker named Sun Jisu was behind Facebook's global outage. The news circulating has been attributed to Reuters.

A supporting image within the article body

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar's team searched the Arabic and English versions of Reuters and found no news of the misinformation circulated on Arab news platforms and social media pioneers.

The observatory's team searched Reuters' website and official Twitter account and did not find it at all. At the same time. Reuters published a report that the malfunctions suffered by Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp may result from an internal error. According to Reuters and follow-up security experts, the defect was unlikely to be a breakthrough except by managing a large criminal gang or advanced techniques. It is likely by someone working within the company.

In a statement quoted by Reuters, Facebook said that it believes that the main reason for the disconnection is a misadjustment in the settings of the main routers that caused problems that led to the interruption of the communication service."

Early Tuesday, Facebook announced that all its social media platforms were returning to normal.

Facebook outage on Monday prevented its 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. The Facebook outage is the largest ever tracked by web monitoring group Downdetector.