Security Firm: “Syria Has Largely Disappeared From The Internet”

War-torn Syria is reportedly experiencing massive Internet outages. Both Google’s transparency monitor and security firm Cloudflare are reporting near zero levels of traffic out of the area. This isn’t the first time the beleaguered nation has experienced Internet issues. Back in 2012, the Syrian government, in attempt to paralyze opposition rebels, cut the entire country off from the rest of the world.

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“Syria has largely disappeared from the Internet,” writes security firm, Umbrella, about the abrupt traffic stop today.

Umbrella describes how such a cutoff is possible, “Routing on the Internet relies on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). BGP distributes routing information and makes sure all routers on the Internet know how to get to a certain IP address.” Continuing, ” Shutting down Internet access to and from Syria is achieved by withdrawing the BGP routes from Syrian prefixes.”

Last December, we interviewed Cloudflare about how exactly a government can cut off its citizens from the web. Watch the interview below:

This is a breaking story and we will update readers as more information comes in.