Cloudflare Downtime 2025 showed how fast one bug can dim the internet. A bot-management config error rippled across Cloudflare’s edge and took major services including X and ChatGPT offline for hours. No attack, just a software failure that hit millions at once.
In the very same month, the CMMC final rule took effect (November 10, 2025), kicking off a phased rollout across new DoD contracts. For many awards, a current Level 1 or 2 self-assessment or certification in SPRS is now checked at award.
So just as contracts start scoring cyber readiness, a core internet provider reminded everyone how fragile “always on” really is. This Thanksgiving is a good moment to run a quiet resilience check and make sure you’re ready for both audits and outages.
When a cloud hiccup becomes your problem
If your team depends heavily on Cloudflare (or any single CDN, DNS, or security edge), an outage doesn’t just mean a slow website. It can mean:
- Customers and partners can’t reach portals or apps.
- Users are locked out of secure workspaces that hold CUI.
- Status pages and support tools fail at the same time you need them most.
- Planned CMMC work, SPRS updates, artifact uploads, remote assessments comes to a halt.
For contractors working under DFARS clauses and preparing for CMMC Level 2, availability and integrity aren’t just good practice, they tie directly into the NIST SP 800-171 control families behind Level 2 (access control, audit and accountability, incident response, contingency planning, and system integrity).
If the internet blinks during the holiday rush, can you keep meeting those expectations on Cloudflare Downtime 2025?
Thanksgiving Lens: What are you Thankful You Tested?
Instead of only asking “what went wrong for Cloudflare,” this is a chance to ask:
- If our primary CDN or DNS provider failed on a holiday, could we still serve traffic?
- If our secure CUI enclave stayed up but our identity provider or SSO chain broke, how would users log in?
- If a C3PAO or contracting officer asked for evidence from the outage week, could we show logs, decisions, and restoration steps that line up with our policies?
Those questions sit right at the intersection of Cloudflare downtime and CMMC resilience.
A Combined Cloudflare + CMMC resilience checklist
Since the Cloudflare Downtime 2025 use this as a Thanksgiving “table-top” conversation with your IT, security, and contracts teams.
1. Multi-CDN and DNS posture
- Do you have more than one CDN or WAF option defined, even if one is “cold” today?
- Is your authoritative DNS ready to steer traffic away from a failing provider with health-based routing and short TTLs (60–300 seconds) for critical hostnames?
- Is at least one DNS provider independent of your primary CDN or cloud platform?
2. CUI enclave and access
- Is the boundary for your CMMC Level 2 in-scope systems clearly defined and diagrammed?
- Can users reach those systems through more than one ISP or VPN endpoint if a single edge network has issues?
- Are admin paths separated from user paths so you can still manage systems during an outage?
3. Evidence that matches your policies
- Do you have recent examples of: MFA enforcement screenshots, log samples, backup tests, access reviews, and change records that cover the last quarter, including the Cloudflare incident week?
- Are incident response notes and tickets for recent disruptions stored where you can pull them quickly for an assessment?
- Can you show how your continuity and outage procedures map back to NIST 800-171 controls in your SSP?
4. SPRS and award readiness
- Is your SPRS self-assessment score posted, current, and linked to the correct CMMC Level 2 environment?
- Do you have a simple reminder to review and re-affirm at least annually and after major changes?
- If a holiday-week outage delayed remediation work, is that reflected in your POA&M timelines and notes?
5. Communication playbook
- Who decides to switch traffic from Provider A to Provider B like the last Cloudflare Downtime 2025?
- How do you notify internal teams, primes/subs, and key customers if a shared provider is down?
- Do you have a status page or fallback channel (for example, on a different provider) that remains reachable during a CDN issue?
A 30-day “Post-Cloudflare” plan
You don’t need a huge project to make progress before year-end.
1st Week – Map and review
- List critical apps and portals touched by Cloudflare or similar services.
- Confirm which ones are in your CMMC Level 2 boundary.
- Capture how DNS, CDN, identity, and origin services chain together for each.
2nd Week – Tighten weak points
- Align cache, WAF, and TLS settings across any secondary CDN or WAF you have in reserve.
- Shorten DNS TTLs on records that may need to move.
- Fill obvious gaps in MFA, logging, and backup testing for in-scope systems.
3rd Week – Run a small drill
- Choose one low-risk hostname or internal app.
- Practice flipping traffic between providers or between regions.
- Record what worked, what broke, and what evidence you collected.
4th Week – Fold it into CMMC
- Update your SSP and diagrams to reflect the real failover design.
- Attach drill notes, screenshots, and log snippets to your evidence set.
- Adjust your POA&M items and milestones based on what you learned.
By the end of the month, you haven’t just thought about Cloudflare’s outage you’ve turned it into proof that your own systems, people, and processes can adapt.
How this ties back to your CMMC story
CMMC isn’t only about stopping attackers. It’s about showing that your organization can keep DoD missions moving when any part of the stack misbehaves cloud, CDN, ISP, or identity provider. The Cloudflare downtime was one of those rare, public stress tests for the global internet.
The contractors who will feel confident in 2026 and beyond will be the ones who can say, calmly and with evidence:
- “We knew a single provider could fail, and we designed around it.”
- “Our logs and drills back up the policies in our SSP.”
- “Our SPRS entry, POA&M, and runbooks tell the same story.”
Your Holiday Next Step
If you’d like a second set of eyes on your Cloudflare (or other CDN/DNS) footprint and how it lines up with your CMMC roadmap, Centrend can walk your team through a short resilience review, map simple improvements, and help you turn this month’s outage into a practical win for next year’s audits and awards.
Ready to turn this month’s outage lessons into a concrete plan? Book a short Cloudflare + CMMC resilience review with Centrend.