Internet routing glitch kicks millions offline

The seemingly indestructible Internet relies on a few backbone systems to keep traffic flowing smoothly. Sometimes, one of those systems blips -- and millions of devices get abruptly kicked offline.

That's what happened the morning of Nov 7, when a software glitch in the Internet's wonky sounding "Border Gateway Protocol" created a ripple effect that crashed data networks around the world. The outage appears to have originated with Juniper Networks, a company that makes router hardware for large networks. A set of updates to a core Internet routing protocol triggered a software glitch in some of Juniper's routers. When those routers crashed, key Internet pathways went down with them. By late morning, most sites were back to normal, shaking off the sluggishness that typically follows a major routing glitch. Like a human fending off a cold, the Internet occasionally succumbs to bugs, but it also tends to bounce right back.