Indian IT Ministry Questions Meta Over WhatsApp Outage: Was It A Cyberattack?

| Published: Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 15:47 [IST]

WhatsApp faced a massive outage yesterday, October 25, for nearly two hours. The Indian IT ministry has asked the parent company, Meta, for an explanation for the massive outage that affected nearly the entire global population using the popular messaging platform. While Meta has acknowledged the issue, it will now have to respond to the Indian ministry as to what caused the problem.

The WhatsApp outage started around 12:30 PM Indian time on October 25. According to Downdetector, 69 percent of global users faced issues in sending messages on WhatsApp. Another 21 percent of global users had server connection issues and around nine percent of users weren't able to use the messaging app for unknown reasons.

WhatsApp users were also unable to download images or make video/voice calls as well. The outage lasted about two hours, and at around 2:30 PM IST, WhatsApp was working normally for users. At the time, Meta acknowledged the outage and issued a statement.

"We're aware that some people are currently having trouble sending messages and we're working to restore WhatsApp for everyone as quickly as possible," Meta said. However, the company refrained from explaining why the outage occurred in the first place. Instead, Meta only said the problem occurred due to a technical error on their end.

IT Ministry Demands An Explanation For WhatsApp Outage

But now, the IT Ministry has reportedly asked Meta to submit a report about the two-hour outage. The reason for the attack and other details need to be provided, the ministry reportedly said. Additionally, the ministry is also tracking for any cyberattack on Meta. Reports say Meta has to submit a report with details of the outage to the Cyber Emergency Response Team of India, CERT-In, which is the IT Ministry's cyber watchdog.

What Caused WhatsApp Outage?

Presently, there's not much information regarding the WhatsApp outage. Moreover, this isn't the first time that Meta-owned platforms are facing such issues. Instagram recently faced a similar outage globally, where users couldn't log in to their accounts or even launch the app.

Meta-owned Oculus has also faced a similar crisis. While it could be a cyberattack, nothing has been officially confirmed. Presently, data loss from WhatsApp hasn't been reported yet. The detailed report from Meta might answer the cause of the outage and its consequences.