News > Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp outage:Cyber experts think the shutdown was caused by BGP

Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp outage:Cyber experts think the shutdown was caused by BGP

Cyber experts think the problem boils down to something called BGP, or Border Gateway Patrol -- the system the internet uses to pick the quickest route to move packets of information around.

Sami Slim of data centre company Telehouse compared BGP to "the internet equivalent of air traffic control". In the same way that air traffic controllers sometimes make changes to flight schedules, "Facebook did an update of these routes," Slim said.