Verizon's widespread network outage on Wednesday was reportedly triggered by a technical failure originating in a single East Coast state, despite affecting customers nationwide. Officials say early findings suggest the outage may have started when a network server in New Jersey went offline.
Law enforcement agencies along the East Coast have been looking into the incident to rule out any sabotage, but so far, it appears that the server failure originally set off the day-long disruption. As the outage dragged on, social media users immediately began to speculate, with many users suggesting the hours-long disruption — which pushed phones into SOS mode — might have been the result of a massive cyberattack.
The Real Reason
New York State Assembly member Anil Beephan has urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate the outage. So far, officials say there is no evidence of hacking or interference by cybercriminals.
However, James Knight of DigitalWarfare.com told the Daily Mail that cyberwarfare specialists find it troubling how quickly the outage rippled across the entire country, raising questions about how such a widespread failure could happen within minutes.
"True single-point failures shouldn't cascade this way in a properly engineered system, and the silence on exact causes only heightens doubts," Knight explained.
Knight also pointed out that Verizon's "built-in redundancies," such as widely distributed data centers, continuous system testing, and multiple signal routing paths, are designed to prevent exactly this kind of prolonged, nationwide outage, making the scale of the blackout especially concerning.
"That said, there are no credible signs or evidence this was cyberwarfare, a cyberattack, or foreign interference," the cyberwarfare expert noted.
Although Verizon's outage resembled a 2024 AT&T network failure that was later blamed on internal software issues, Knight told the outlet the timing feels "suspicious," pointing to heightened geopolitical tensions between the US and rivals such as China and Iran.
No One Taking the Blame
Even so, no group or country has claimed responsibility for a possible attack — something Knight said would normally happen if the goal were to gain attention from a major cyber breach. Verizon has also not explained what exactly caused the unexplained outage, which left many customers unable to make calls or send text messages.
On Thursday, the telecom company told the Daily Mail that anyone impacted by the disruption will receive a $20 credit. Customers will need to claim the credit through the myVerizon app.
"This credit isn't meant to make up for what happened. No credit, really, can. But it's a way of acknowledging our customers' time and showing that this matters to us," a spokesperson for Verizon said.
The spokesperson said that business customers would be contacted directly about compensation, but did not explain how many users were affected or how Verizon is determining who qualifies.
During the outage, customers described the disruption as unpredictable. Many said some lines on their accounts stopped working while others stayed online, with several families reporting that one phone slipped into SOS mode even as another worked normally all day.
According to the outage-tracking site Down Detector, the network started experiencing problems just before noon on Wednesday.
