Disclaimer: This is general safety information, not legal or financial advice. Outages are usually genuine technical faults — the danger is the scams that follow them.

Quick take

Cloudflare has a confirmed service disruption (2026-07-16).
Outages themselves are not scams — but scammers move fast to exploit the confusion.
Never act on unexpected "outage compensation", "reconnect your service" or "verify your account" messages.

What's happening

According to Cloudflare's own status page, there is an active incident: Durable Objects Increased Errors. We have applied a fix and are beginning to see service recovery.

Check the official source before trusting anything else: Cloudflare status.

Is the outage a scam?

No. A network or service outage is a technical fault, not a scam. The real risk is the wave of scams that piggyback on an outage, because people are anxious, checking their phones, and expecting messages about the disruption.

Scams to watch for during a Cloudflare outage

Fake "compensation" texts/emails — "Claim your Cloudflare outage refund of $X, tap here." Real refunds are never claimed via a random link.
"Restore your service" phishing — a link to "reactivate" or "fix" your account that harvests your login or card details.
Fake support numbers — search results and social posts pushing a "Cloudflare help line" that connects you to a scammer asking for remote access or payment.
Impersonator DMs on social media replying to people complaining about the outage.

How to stay safe right now

Only trust the official Cloudflare status page and app for updates.
Don't click links in unexpected SMS/email about the outage — type the address yourself.
Cloudflare will never ask for your password, PIN, one-time code or card details to "restore service".
If a message feels urgent, that urgency is the red flag — slow down and verify.

How to verify the incident safely

Open the Cloudflare status page yourself instead of following a link from a text, email, direct message or search advertisement. Match the incident name shown there with Durable Objects Increased Errors, then read the most recent status update before deciding what to do. A message that copies the incident name is not automatically genuine; public incident details can also be copied by scammers.

If you operate a website or service that uses Cloudflare, compare the public status information with your own monitoring, logs and support channels. Do not install remote-access software, change security settings or share an authentication code because an unexpected caller says those steps will speed up recovery. The official incident page is for status information, not for collecting passwords, payment details or recovery phrases.

If you already responded to an outage message

Stop the conversation and close any linked page. If you entered a password, change it from the official site on a trusted device and review active sessions and multi-factor authentication. If you shared card or bank details, contact the financial institution using the number on the card or its official app. Remove any remote-access tool you were persuaded to install, preserve the message and URL as evidence, and report the contact through the appropriate service below.

Check a suspicious message

Got a text, email or link about the outage and not sure? Paste it into the free Is It a Scam? checker for an instant risk read — it works on your device and flags the exact tricks above.

Report it

🇦🇺 Australia: Scamwatch
🇺🇸 USA: FTC ReportFraud
🇬🇧 UK: Action Fraud

Cloudflare outage scams to avoid (16 July 2026)