Shares of Cloudflare (NET) plummeted 5.40% in pre-market trading on Tuesday following reports of a widespread global outage that disrupted access to numerous major websites and applications, including X (formerly Twitter) and ChatGPT. The cloud services provider, which handles about a fifth of web traffic, acknowledged the issue and stated that it was working on a fix.

The outage, which began around 6:40 a.m. ET, affected thousands of users across various platforms. Cloudflare reported that it had identified the issue and was implementing a fix, but warned that customers might continue to experience higher-than-normal error rates as services recover. The company attributed the problem to a spike in unusual traffic to one of its services, causing errors in traffic passing through its network.

This incident highlights the critical role Cloudflare plays in maintaining internet infrastructure and the potential impact of its service disruptions on the broader online ecosystem. As investors weigh the implications of this outage on Cloudflare's reputation and future performance, the stock's significant drop reflects growing concerns about the company's ability to maintain reliable service in an increasingly digital-dependent world.