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CONCEPT Cited by 2 sources

Internet resilience

Definition

Internet resilience is the ability of Internet infrastructure — physical cables, power systems, routing fabric, DNS hierarchy, and cloud regions — to absorb shocks and maintain connectivity. The term encompasses redundancy in power, routing, and physical paths at every layer of the stack.

The concept is typically surfaced in contrast to the Internet's fragility: "the Internet's fragility is easy to overlook — as long as it's working. When it fails, its complexity comes into full view" (Source: sources/2026-07-28-cloudflare-q2-2026-internet-disruption-summary).

Threat taxonomy (from Cloudflare Radar observations)

Events that test Internet resilience fall into predictable categories, each with different redundancy requirements:

Category Example Redundancy need
Natural disaster Typhoon, earthquake Power redundancy, diverse physical paths
Power failure National grid collapse, regional blackout Backup power, geographic diversity
Government-directed Exam shutdowns, political shutdowns Sovereign-diverse routing
Kinetic conflict Drone strikes on data centers Multi-region replication
Cable/fiber cut Submarine cable severed Path diversity, backup submarine routes
DNSSEC/protocol failure Key rollover misfire Serve-stale, NTA mechanisms

Key observation

Fundamentally different causes — a typhoon, an earthquake, a deliberate government shutdown, and a power outage — leave "such similar footprints in the data and user experience." From the user's perspective, the Internet is either up or it isn't; the cause taxonomy matters only for building redundancy against the right failure modes (Source: sources/2026-07-28-cloudflare-q2-2026-internet-disruption-summary).

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