Over the past month, several high-profile disruptions, from massive DDoS attacks to cloud service outages, have highlighted just how interconnected and fragile the online world really is. We want to help you, our users, understand these events. This isn't about making excuses; it's about shedding light on how the digital ecosystem works and what it means when things go wrong. By the end of this article, you'll see why a hiccup at a service like Cloudflare or AWS can send ripples across the globe, and how Coreware is on your team, working tirelessly to keep things running smoothly despite challenges that sometimes lie outside anyone’s control.

The Rising Threat of DDoS Attacks

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are a growing menace in today’s digital landscape. In a DDoS attack, malicious actors flood a target website or service with an overwhelming amount of fake traffic, trying to knock it offline. Think of it like a crowd of millions trying to squeeze through a store’s doorway all at once, legitimate customers can’t get in, and the business grinds to a halt.

These attacks have exploded in size and frequency in recent times. Just a few weeks ago, Cloudflare automatically blocked a record-shattering DDoS attack that peaked at 22.2 Tb/s, about twice as large as anything ever seen on the internet before. To put that in perspective, that’s like 9,000+ high-definition movies streaming simultaneously, all directed as a weapon at one website. This was actually the second record-breaking attack in a month, following a previous 11.5 Tb/s attack that Cloudflare also managed to stop.

Beyond the Obvious: AI Scrapers and Bots

While massive DDoS events grab headlines, not every digital threat looks like a flood of malicious traffic. Increasingly, disruptions come from AI-driven scrapers and bots, tools that mimic human visitors to extract data or train AI models by crawling websites. On the surface, these visitors often look legitimate: they move through pages, click links, and appear to be regular users. But behind the scenes, they can quietly consume enormous amounts of bandwidth and server resources.

We’ve experienced this ourselves recently. What initially appeared to be normal human activity turned out to be non-human traffic generated by automated systems. These types of attacks are far harder to detect and block than traditional DDoS events because they behave more intelligently. If we block too aggressively, we risk locking out legitimate customers. If we’re too lenient, these bots slip through, straining infrastructure and slowing performance.

It becomes a constant “whack-a-mole” exercise, you identify one source and shut it down, only to have one, two, or a hundred more pop up elsewhere. As AI tools continue to evolve, so do their tactics. These scrapers and bots can spin up across thousands of IP addresses worldwide, each acting like a real visitor, which makes mitigation increasingly complex.

With the busy season approaching, we’re putting even more focus on mitigating all three major threats: DDoS attacks, AI scrapers, and bots. Each presents a different kind of challenge, but the result can be the same, performance issues, intermittent downtime, or slower response times. We want you to know that Coreware is actively monitoring, adapting, and reinforcing defenses to keep your systems stable and your customers’ experience uninterrupted.

An Interconnected Digital World: One Hiccup, Global Ripples

One of the key points we want to convey is how tightly connected the online infrastructure really is. The internet isn’t a simple, isolated system, it’s a web of interdependencies. If one critical service has an issue, it can cascade far beyond its own walls.

We saw a dramatic example of this just last month. On October 20, 2025, a major portion of the internet experienced an involuntary “blackout.” Snapchat went dark, Fortnite gamers got kicked off, Ring doorbells stopped recording, several UK banking apps froze, and even Amazon’s Alexa voice service went silent. The culprit? A DNS resolution failure in AWS’s US-East-1 datacenter, a small but critical part of the internet’s backbone.

That single failure caused widespread outages lasting over seven hours and highlighted just how fragile the global digital ecosystem can be. When one foundational service like AWS or Cloudflare has a hiccup, the ripple effects spread everywhere. It wasn’t just a few small sites, it affected hundreds of major platforms simultaneously, costing an estimated $75 million in lost revenue per hour across industries.

These incidents show that while the digital world feels infinite and autonomous, it’s really a massive, interlocked system where tiny failures can create global effects.

A Familiar Analogy: Ammo Primers and Digital Bottlenecks

To put this into perspective for our firearms retail audience, let’s revisit an analogy from our world. Remember the ammo primer shortage a few years back?

The primer, the small ignition component at the base of a cartridge, might seem insignificant. But during the “Great Primer Shortage,” that tiny part brought ammo production to a crawl. Manufacturers had plenty of bullets, casings, and powder, but without primers, they couldn’t complete a single round. The entire supply chain stalled because of a missing piece that cost only a few cents.

The digital world works much the same way. There are countless small components, DNS servers, data centers, content delivery networks, and payment processors. Most of the time, you don’t think about them because they work invisibly. But if one fails, the entire system can come to a halt, just as missing primers halted ammunition production.

A small disruption, a misconfigured DNS, an overloaded data center, or a swarm of bots, can ripple across everything. The smallest component can hold up the entire operation.

Building Resilience: How We (and the Industry) Fight Disruptions

Given all this, it’s fair to ask: what are companies doing to prevent or minimize disruptions? And what is Coreware doing to protect you? Rest assured, we take these threats seriously and continuously strengthen our defenses and resilience.

• Robust DDoS Protection: We leverage industry-leading DDoS mitigation services that filter bad traffic and keep legitimate customers online, even under heavy strain.
• Advanced Bot Detection: Our systems use behavioral analysis to distinguish human activity from bots, ensuring we can block harmful automation without affecting real customers.
• Redundancy and Fail-safes: Just like keeping multiple suppliers for critical inventory, we maintain redundant servers and regional fail-over systems to avoid single points of failure.
• Monitoring and Rapid Response: Our 24/7 monitoring alerts us immediately to any unusual traffic or upstream provider issues, allowing us to act before disruptions escalate.
• Strict Security Standards: From firewalls to continuous updates, we adhere to the highest security benchmarks to protect your data and maintain uptime.

We also believe in transparency and teamwork. If something goes wrong, whether caused by an upstream provider, a scraper swarm, or a global outage, we’ll communicate promptly and clearly. Our goal is never to shift blame but to work alongside you until everything is running smoothly again.

Staying Resilient Together

The past month has been a reminder that the digital world, for all its sophistication, remains fragile. Whether it’s DDoS attacks, AI scrapers, or bots, each new wave of technology brings both opportunity and risk. The key is resilience, and that’s exactly what Coreware is committed to building with you.

When an issue occurs, know this: you’re not alone. We’re monitoring, adapting, and responding every day, just like the rest of the global infrastructure community. And just as the ammunition industry bounced back from its primer shortage, the digital world grows stronger after every challenge.

At Coreware, we’ve got your six. Together, we’ll continue to navigate this complex, ever-evolving landscape and ensure your business remains ready for whatever comes next.