Why more and more online platforms are 'going down'

Just this week, both WhatsApp and Apple's digital platforms suffered global outages due to technical issues. Earlier, McDonald's and AT&T reported major global outages after their digital platforms were unavailable for nearly half a day.

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While service disruptions are not a foreign concept in the tech industry, the growing trend of outages could signal a growing problem in the digital security and service systems we use today.

Here are some of the reasons for the increase in outages.

The increase in attacks

A study from Harvard Business Review points to an increase in cyberattacks throughout 2023 as threat actors use more sophisticated methods to disrupt operations or steal critical data for ransom.

In addition to government portals, one of the main targets of these cybercrime campaigns is large healthcare and global businesses, where hackers can steal thousands of critical customer information in an instant.

Relevant examples include recent cyberattacks on UnitedHealthcare, AT&T, and Microsoft that resulted in the personal data of many of their customers and employees being compromised. Digital experts estimate that hackers could steal billions of dollars from these cyberattacks despite government efforts to prevent it.

Technical problems, server vulnerabilities

Similar to what happened on X when billionaire Elon Musk took over, tech companies, especially those operating on social platforms, are noted to suffer more internal problems in maintaining their platforms.

One possible explanation for this could be that more users are accessing social networks, making it difficult for servers to keep up with demand. Additionally, a recent report found that companies have neglected to upgrade their technical capabilities to keep up with the increasing functionality on their platforms.

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has led more social media sites and even digital retail platforms to further integrate the technology into their features, pushing their server capacities to the limit.