The outages of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram on Monday were most likely due to problems with the company’s domain name system, which is an inconspicuous but vital component of the Internet.

Usually called DNS, it is like the phone book of the Internet. It is a tool that converts a web domain (such as Facebook) into the actual Internet protocol or IP address where the site is located. Think of Facebook as the person people might look for in the white pages, and think of the IP address as the physical address they will find. On Monday, a technical issue related to Facebook’s DNS records caused at least a six-hour outage.

When a DNS error occurs, the user’s web browser or smartphone application can navigate to the Facebook service longer. Not only did Facebook’s main platform malfunction, but some of its internal applications also malfunctioned, including the company’s own email system.

Users on Twitter and Reddit also stated that employees of the company’s campus in Menlo Park, California cannot enter offices and conference rooms that require security badges. This can happen if the system granting access is also connected to the same domain-Facebook. Facebook’s problem seems to stem from Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). If DNS is the phone book of the Internet, then BGP is its postal service. When users enter data on the Internet, BGP determines the best available path through which the data can be transmitted.

According to John Graham-Cumming, Cloudflare’s chief technology officer, in a tweet, a few minutes before the Facebook platform stopped loading, public records showed that Facebook’s BGP routing has undergone a lot of changes. Facebook has not yet commented on whether or why these changes were made.

News Source : Gadgets 360