Meta said that the global Facebook & Instagram outage, which left millions of people unable to log in to their accounts, was caused by a “technical problem” that had not been specified.

Users reported that they had been mysteriously logged off and couldn’t log in again or couldn’t open the app.

According to the tracking website Down Detector, where tens and thousands of users complained about not being able to access their accounts, there was a global outage.

What Facebook and Instagram Hacked?

Has Facebook and Instagram been compromised? It doesn’t seem like it. Instead, both services are experiencing an outage.

Jake Moore, global security advisor at ESET, said that Facebook is known to go down. Still, there are many reasons why this might be happening.

Moore says that a cyber attack is “highly unlikely,” but it “can’t be completely ruled out.”

Elon Musk’s X Remained Unaffected

Elon Musk’s X platform was still operational, and Twitter’s CEO seized the opportunity to show off the “superiority of” his platform.

What Did Meta Say?

In an X-post, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged the snag as it occurred. “We are aware that people have trouble logging in to our services. “We are working on it now,” he wrote.

Stone later confirmed that the matter was resolved.

“Earlier today, a technical problem prevented some people from accessing our services. Stone stated that we resolved the problem as quickly as we could for all those affected. We apologise for any inconvenience.

The spokesperson did not identify the cause of the global disruption.

Users Criticize The Lack Of Information Regarding Outages

Meta does not have an official status page, provided very little information on what happened during the outage, and said nothing else about it other than blaming “a technical issue.”

This has caused frustration among some users, who are worried they have been hacked. Facebook wasn’t the only one affected. The Meta Quest headset was also affected by the outage.

Meta VR Headset Users Experienced An Outage As Well – Report

The Verge reported that some Meta Quest users had trouble logging in to their devices yesterday during the global outage that affected Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Metaverse is down because Horizon Worlds was not working for some users.

“Earlier today, people had difficulty accessing our services due to a technical problem. Meta Quest’s official X account said that the problem was resolved as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Down Detector reported that tens of thousands of users had reported the outage of Meta’s social media platforms. Instagram was not working at all. Facebook users were also logged out during the outage.

US Cybersecurity Agency: ‘No Issues Outside The Ordinary’

Axios reported that the US Government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which took note of yesterday’s outage of Meta’s platforms worldwide, said it had not observed any “out-of-the-ordinary” issues.

Tuesday was an important day in the US, as 15 states chose delegates who would decide which presidential candidates to support.

Following the outage that affected Facebook and Instagram, several users raised initial concerns about a possible cyber attack.

CISA, at a press conference yesterday about election security, said that it was “aware” of the incident and its global scope. It added that malicious cyber activity had been unlikely.

The US agency stated that it was aware of the incident but did not know if it was linked to specific elections or malicious cyber activities at this point.

Meta’s Platforms Experienced Similar Outages In 2021

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all experienced an outage in 2021 that lasted nearly six hours and affected more than three billion users around the world.

Facebook explained in a blog post that the outage was caused by a mistake during routine maintenance.

A command given by engineers in the course of maintenance “effectively disconnected Facebook data centres worldwide” after an unintentional shutdown.

Facebook stated that it would “increase testing, drills, and overall resiliency” to ensure such an event happened as “rarely as is possible.”

Report: Some Meta Employees Thought They Had Been Laid Off Due To Outage

Reuters reported that several Meta employees wondered if their jobs were being cut when they couldn’t log in to their work systems on Tuesday during the worldwide outage of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

According to Downdetector.com, at its peak, there were 550,000 reports about disruptions on Facebook and approximately 92,000 on Instagram.

Meta did not reveal the exact cause of the outage, but the issue was resolved Tuesday.

A technical problem caused some people to be unable to access our services earlier today. “We resolved the issue…for all those who were impacted”, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated.

Meta Apologizes And Thanks Users

After the chaos, Meta apologised to users for their patience and thanked them.

Facebook and Instagram Security

You will need to log in again when you are able to access Facebook or Instagram. It’s important to use a password manager like 1Password or Bitwarden.

Moore says that when Facebook is up and running again, users will have the option to log in. Still, if they click on the forgotten password, they can generate a unique password using a password manager.

For added security, you can enable two-factor verification to protect Facebook and Instagram against hackers.

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