When you think about the massive web that powers our daily lives, it’s hard to imagine anyone actually trying to yank the plug. Yet, over the years there have been a handful of bold, bizarre, and sometimes downright reckless attempts to bring the internet to its knees. Below are the top 10 times people tried to shut down the internet, ranging from lone vandals to state‑level cyber assaults.
top 10 times the web faced a shutdown attempt
10 Texas Man Attempts To Blow Up The Web
In 2021 a Texan named Seth Aaron Pendley was nabbed by federal agents after an elaborate scheme to literally blow up a chunk of the internet surfaced. Pendley claimed he could wipe out roughly 70% of the online world by planting a C‑4 charge inside a Virginia data center that housed servers for the FBI and CIA. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, his goal was to topple what he called the “oligarchy” governing the United States.
The plot unraveled when a friend tipped off authorities. Pendley, who frequented extremist forums under the moniker Dionysus—the Greek god of wine and chaos—boasted on MyMilitia about conducting “a little experiment.” He also bragged about bringing a sawed‑off AR‑15 to the Capitol riot, though he later claimed he left it in his car.
Even if his bomb had detonated, the claim of destroying 70% of the internet would have been wildly exaggerated. The internet’s backbone is a globally distributed mesh of servers and redundant pathways. Pendley now faces up to two decades behind bars if convicted.
9 Man Tries To Destroy Internet To Hide Embarrassing Footage
Embarrassment online can be a nightmare, and one Chinese citizen decided the only solution was to sabotage the very network that could spread his mortifying moment. In 2016, Liu—whose full name remains undisclosed—feared that a video of him dancing at a public fitness gathering would go viral.
While living in Weifang, Liu joined a typical “granny dance” where middle‑aged women perform choreographed moves in the streets. He said on police statements that passersby were giggling and filming his awkward routine on their phones, leaving him mortified.
Months later, panic set in. In August, Liu broke into four China Telecom service boxes, ripping out the equipment inside. The sabotage caused roughly 10,000 yuan (about $15,000) in damage. CCTV caught him in the act, and he was promptly arrested.
8 Chad’s Year‑Long Social Media Outage
From March 2018 onward, Chad endured a staggering 16‑month blackout of major social‑media platforms, the longest such ban in African history. With only about 6.5% of the population regularly online, citizens were cut off from family, businesses lost a vital advertising channel, and journalists struggled to get their stories out.
The crackdown was a direct response to mounting dissent against President Idriss Déby. Critics labeled him a “democratically bankrupt” leader, accusing him of using the ban to silence activists and maintain power.
Experts from CIPESA explained that authoritarian regimes, regardless of their citizens’ internet penetration, fear the web’s capacity to empower ordinary people to speak truth to power.
7 Disruption As Mirai Botnet Attacks Dyn Servers
October 2016 saw the Mirai botnet unleash a massive distributed denial‑of‑service (DDoS) assault that crippled Dyn, a key DNS provider. The onslaught flooded Dyn’s infrastructure, temporarily knocking major sites like Twitter, Netflix and CNN offline for millions of users.
Mirai’s strength lay in commandeering a swarm of insecure internet‑connected devices—security cameras, DVRs, and other IoT gadgets—turning them into a massive traffic‑generating army. At the time, it was hailed as the largest DDoS attack ever recorded.
6 Houthi Rebels Sever Yemen’s Main Cable
Since 2015 Yemen has been mired in a humanitarian crisis, with Houthi rebels locked in a brutal clash against a Saudi‑led coalition. In July 2018 the rebels deliberately cut the nation’s primary fiber‑optic cable, plunging roughly 80% of Yemen’s internet users into darkness.
The cable was severed near the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah, a move that also slowed the already fragile internet speeds. Telecommunications Minister Lutfi Bashreef warned that the rebels were imposing social‑media bans and hinted at an even broader blackout to conceal their actions.
5 Myanmar Coup Government Introduce Internet Shutdown
When the military junta seized control of Myanmar in February 2021, it swiftly moved to strangle online dissent. Mobile data services were disabled almost overnight, followed shortly by a wholesale wireless‑broadband shutdown. The crackdown has coincided with at least 535 reported deaths.
Undeterred, citizens turned to radio, offline messaging apps and candle‑lit vigils to protest. The night before the broadband cut, activists rallied around battery‑powered radios, declaring, “We will never surrender,” as a symbol of resilience against the digital blackout.
4 Morris Worm, The Accidental Cyber Attack
In 1988 Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris set out to measure the internet’s size. He wrote a program that hopped from machine to machine, pinging a central server to tally each new host.
Unfortunately, the worm spread far faster than intended, replicating itself across thousands of computers and overwhelming networks. This unintentional DDoS‑style attack effectively clogged the internet, marking the first major cyber‑attack that forced researchers to rethink security.
3 Saboteurs Try To Cut Off Internet In Egypt
In 2013 three scuba divers were intercepted off Alexandria’s coast after attempting to slice an undersea cable that links Egypt to Europe. Egyptian naval forces displayed the captured men, claiming they intended to cripple the nation’s online traffic.
At the time, Egypt relied on eight submarine cables for international connectivity, so damaging one would have caused a notable disruption, though not a total collapse. The divers refused to disclose their motives or any affiliations.
2 India’s Long History Of Internet Shutdowns
India has become the world’s most prolific user of internet blackouts. The practice surged after the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act sparked nationwide protests. In response, authorities routinely suspend online access, claiming it’s necessary to “keep the peace.”
The most extensive shutdown hit Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, leaving over 13 million residents offline for 18 months before service was finally restored in February 2021.
1 Onslaught Against Internet’s Root Server System
In 2002, a coordinated DDoS campaign targeted the thirteen root DNS servers that form the internet’s core routing infrastructure. Security experts labeled it the most complex and massive attack of its time.
Built‑in defensive mechanisms prevented a total collapse, but the hour‑long barrage highlighted how vulnerable the backbone could be if attackers sustained pressure.
Chris Morrow, a digital‑security analyst, described the incident as “probably the most concerted attack against the Internet infrastructure we’ve seen.”
Alan Paller added, “The only way to stop such attacks is to fix the vulnerabilities on the machines that ultimately get taken over and used to launch them. There’s no defense once the machines are under the attacker’s control.”
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