Reuters confirmed the outage was due to "an international interconnection problem."
In a separate report, Reuters said that Italy's National Cybersecurity Agency warned about a ransomware attack targeting servers worldwide.
The hacking attack sought to exploit a software vulnerability, ACN director general Roberto Baldoni told Reuters, adding it was on a massive scale.
Italy's ANSA news agency, citing the ACN, reported that servers had been compromised in other European countries such as France and Finland as well as the United States and Canada. -RTRS
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was aware of the attack. The agency said:
"CISA is working with our public and private sector partners to assess the impacts of these reported incidents and providing assistance where needed."
Reuters pointed out that the cyberattack and Italy's internet outage "were not believed to be related."
Meanwhile, here's what people are saying on social media:
Oh yeah, and there's this video from last month.
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Update (1150ET):
Reuters confirmed "internet outages and glitches" across Italy on Sunday. The problem appears to be an "international link."
"An international interconnection problem impacting the service at the national level was detected. Analyses are underway to resolve the problem," a Telecom Italia (TIM) spokesperson said.
Italy's ANSA News agency reported there are no signs yet that hackers were responsible for the widespread outage.
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Network data from NetBlocks shows widespread disruption to internet service across Italy on Sunday. It's been reported that the telecommunications blackout might stem from leading operator Telecom Italia.
NetBlocks' real-time network data shows that national connectivity plunged from around 100% to 26% this morning.