Overview

• Monitoring by Great Firewall Report found that from 00:34 to 01:48 Beijing time on Aug. 20, injected TCP RST+ACK packets disrupted all connections on port 443.
• The disruption prevented many users in China from reaching websites and services hosted outside the country, affecting common HTTPS-dependent functions.
• The device observed during the event did not match known Great Firewall fingerprints, suggesting either a new component or a misconfigured state, according to the analysis.
• Reporters noted no obvious domestic trigger for a deliberate escalation of censorship, and Chinese authorities have not provided an explanation.
• NetBlocks separately recorded a major traffic drop in Pakistan hours earlier, a correlation mentioned in coverage without evidence of a direct link.