An internet blackout that hit many high-profile websites on Tuesday has been blamed on a software bug, the BBC reports. Fastly, the cloud-computing company responsible for the issues, said the bug had been triggered when one of its customers changed its settings. The outage has raised questions about the potential perils of relying on a handful of companies to run the vast infrastructure that underpins the internet. The outage, which lasted about an hour, hit popular websites including Amazon, Reddit, the Guardian, and the New York Times. Fastly senior engineering executive Nick Rockwell said: “This outage was broad and severe, and we’re truly sorry for the impact to our customers and everyone who relies on them.” The company operates servers at strategic points around the world to help customers move and store content close to their end users. But a customer legitimately changing its settings exposed a bug in a software update issued to customers in mid-May, causing “85% of our network to return errors,” the company said.
