Overview

• Monitoring group Great Firewall Report logged forged TCP RST+ACK injections between 00:34 and 01:48 Beijing time on August 20, cutting most China–global HTTPS connections.
• The interference targeted only TCP port 443, leaving ports such as 22, 80, and 8443 largely unaffected, which analysts called atypical compared with past broad HTTPS blocks.
• The device fingerprint did not match known Great Firewall gear, leading researchers to consider a new platform or a misconfigured system as plausible explanations.
• Access to most overseas websites failed and services dependent on offshore servers—cited examples include Apple iCloud and Tesla connectivity—were disrupted during the outage.
• No official explanation has been issued, and while NetBlocks noted a sharp traffic drop in Pakistan hours earlier, any connection to the China incident remains unproven.