Last Monday, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were inaccessible, down and outage for more than six hours.
This marked the largest outage for the digital giant since a glitch knocked Facebook offline for almost a day in 2008.
When apps that were used by billions of people around the world suddenly stopped working, many people and businesses were adversely affected.
The incident made many businesses realize that it’s ‘dangerous’ to completely rely on third-party apps.
At the same time, it highlights the importance for businesses to have their own platforms (host their own company website), cybersecurity protection, and disaster recovery as a backup.
Instagram was down! Complaints of account suspension; losing followers
Following reports that the Instagram app was suffering from a glitch that prevented users from logging into their accounts, the company has issued a statement via Twitter.
If users’ accounts are suspended, it is highly likely that they will see a big reduction in the number of followers on the platform.
Tweets from the official Instagram communications account read, “We’re aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account.
We’re looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience. #instagramdown”
![Account suspended] Instagram down and not working? You're not alone](https://i0.wp.com/piunikaweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Insta-down-acknowledged.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
According to Downdetector, which monitors issues with social networking sites, the problems began shortly after 4 p.m. UAE time, with a significant increase in reported incidents around 5 p.m.
The problems appeared to be affecting users in every region of the world. Downdetector revealed a disproportionately high number of complaints from customers located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
There have been close to 8,000 complaints lodged within one hour all around the world.
LinkedIn outage affected thousands of users
According to Downdetector, thousands of users on LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft Corporation) experienced service disruptions on Wednesday.
According to Downdetector, there were over 10,000 occurrences reported on the social networking service. It is possible that a higher number of users are impacted by the outage.
Reuters reached out to Microsoft for comment, but the company did not immediately respond.
Whatsapp outage for hours
Last week, the popular instant messaging and communication app, WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta and is used by many people for speedy texting, experienced a significant outage when the app was unavailable for about two hours.
During the outage, millions of WhatsApp users around the world couldn’t send or receive messages.
This was WhatsApp’s first big outage since the broader Meta outage on October 5, which took down WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook together.
The disruption lasted for several hours and affected millions of users before the services were brought back online.
Downdetector’s data shows that the WhatsApp outage on Tuesday was the most significant one of the week. During peak times, there were about 70,000 complaints about the outage.
Meta admitted that an outage occurred, and according to the company’s spokesperson, “the brief outage was a result of a technical error on our part and has now been resolved.”
Impact of Third-party Software Downtime to Every Business
WhatsApp was originally made to be a personal messaging app, but businesses have started using it for business purposes.
For mobile frontline employees in particular, WhatsApp being free and easy to use makes it an appealing ad hoc choice for workplace communication.
This is especially true in situations where employees are required to be mobile.
There are a lot of reasons why using WhatsApp for communication at work is a bad idea.
In the past, WhatsApp has received a significant amount of backlash for failing to adequately protect the data privacy of its users.
In addition to this, the European Court of Justice has ruled that certain US technology companies, especially Facebook, do not offer an acceptable level of security for personal data protection.
If your employees are still using WhatsApp for business communication, your company may run the risk of data breaches and security threats.
On Tuesday, WhatsApp experienced a service disruption that lasted for one hour. In India, big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Lucknow were among the places that were affected.
Outages of WhatsApp have occurred before in India, so this is not the first time it has happened there.
On 19 January, 2020, the social messaging service was severely disrupted in a number of regions all across the world, including India.
This left many small businesses, which have become more reliant on the network, in a precarious position.
Despite the fact that Meta acknowledged the problem, the company did not provide an explanation for the incident.
Experts believe that such circumstances may become more widespread as the reliance of small businesses on the app continues to grow.
Final Takeaways
As such, it is of the utmost importance that companies do not completely depend on third-party platforms for business communication.
It is a good idea for companies to have their own platforms, such as a company website / web store.
Moreover, disaster recovery solutions such as Exabytes’ Veeam Disaster Recovery as a Service do a great job of ensuring business continuity and data availability.
Exabytes helps companies stay vigilant and safe from the top cyber threats that affect SMEs, such as phishing attacks, ransomware, data breaches, and website defacement.
Click here.
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