Michael Chapple

CNN

Why it feels like your favorite websites keep going down

November 20, 2025

Twenty years ago, it was typical for IT services to down “all the time,” said Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame and former computer scientist for the National Security Agency. “It would not be unusual to go a week at work having at least one outage of some IT service,” he said, noting that now everyone relies on the same large providers.

Associated Press

Cloudflare outage impacts thousands, disrupts transit systems, ChatGPT, X and more

November 18, 2025

Cloudflare, based in San Francisco, works behind the scenes to make the internet faster and safer, but when problems flare up “it results in massive digital gridlock” for internet users, cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said. While most people think there’s a direct line between their digital device and a website, what actually happens is that companies like Cloudflare sits in the middle of those connections, he said. Cloudflare is a “content delivery network” that takes content from 20% of the world’s websites and mirrors them on thousands of servers worldwide, said Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

Daily Mail

The idyllic suburb at the heart of Amazon's online collapse is revealed... and why its residents know the internet apocalypse is coming

October 24, 2025

“DynamoDB isn’t a term that most consumers know,' said Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame. 'But it underpins the apps and services that all of us use every single day. It’s one of the record-keepers of the modern internet. But it stopped working and we saw the effects of that outage ripple across the internet."

Huffington Post

An Amazon Outage Nearly Took Out The Whole Internet. Here’s Just How Big It Was.

October 22, 2025

These companies rent informational technology services like servers, networks and storage from a massive data center run by a few technology providers: typically Amazon Web Services, Microsoft or Google, explained Michael Chapple, a professor of IT, analytics, and operations at University of Notre Dame.

BBC News

Amazon outage 'resolved' as Snapchat and banks among sites impacted

October 21, 2025

A new series of "cascading failures" may have arisen after the initial outage, according to Mike Chapple, an information technology professor at Notre Dame University. "It's like when you have a large-scale power outage. Crews start working to try to bring it back on line," Mr Chapple said. "The power might flicker a few times," he explained, but it's possible Amazon had initially "only addressed the symptoms" and not the cause.

Associated Press

Massive Amazon cloud outage has been resolved after disrupting internet use worldwide

October 21, 2025

Cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple said “a slow and bumpy recovery process” is “entirely normal.” As engineers roll out fixes across the cloud computing infrastructure, the process could trigger smaller disruptions, he said. “It’s similar to what happens after a large-scale power outage: While a city’s power is coming back online, neighborhoods may see intermittent glitches as crews finish the repairs,” said Chapple, an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

USA Today

An AWS outage impacted your favorite websites. It's now been resolved.

October 21, 2025

Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame, said in a statement to USA TODAY that the incident is a reminder of the world's dependency on a handful of cloud service providers, including AWS. "When a major cloud provider sneezes, the Internet catches a cold," Chapple said.

Today Show

What Caused the Massive Amazon Web Services Outage?

Video

October 21, 2025

Mike Chapple, University of Notre Dame I.T. professor

NBC News

Massive global outage linked to Amazon’s cloud company

Video

October 21, 2025

Michael Chapple, University of Notre Dame I.T., Analytics & Operations Professor

The Wall Street Journal

Amazon Web Services Outage Hits Dozens of Major Sites and Apps

October 20, 2025

Amazon’s DynamoDB is one of the record-keepers of the modern internet, said Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame and former computer scientist with the National Security Agency. Chapple said the outage is a reminder of the world’s reliance on major cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google. “When a major cloud provider sneezes, the Internet catches a cold,” he said.

CNN

Amazon Web Services says issue ‘mitigated’ as sites hit by global internet outage

October 20, 2025

“Amazon had the data safely stored, but nobody else could find it for several hours, leaving apps temporarily separated from their data,” said Mike Chapple at University of Notre Dame. “It’s as if large portions of the internet suffered temporary amnesia.”

Scripps News

Amazon still grappling with major cloud outages affecting users worldwide

October 20, 2025

“DynamoDB isn’t a term that most consumers know, but it underpins the apps and services that all of us use every single day,” said cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple. It’s “one of the record-keepers of the modern internet,” said Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “It’s fast, it’s cheap, and it’s reliable. But today it stopped working and we saw the effects of that outage ripple across the internet.”

BBC News

Still 'significant errors' for some services after outage, Amazon says, but underlying problem fixed

October 20, 2025

While it seemed the worst had been resolved, a new series of “cascading failures” seems to have arisen during the last few hours, according to Mike Chapple, an information technology professor at Notre Dame University. “It’s like when you have a large-scale power outage,” Chapple said. “Crews start working to try to bring it back on line. The power might flicker a few times,” but it’s possible “they’d only addressed the symptoms” and not the root cause.

Mashable

AWS outage update: What happened today and why

October 20, 2025

"Amazon had the data safely stored, but nobody else could find it for several hours, leaving apps temporarily separated from their data," Mike Chapple, an IT professor at University of Notre Dame, told CNN. "It's as if large portions of the internet suffered temporary amnesia."

Axios

AWS outage spotlights the global economy's fragile foundations

October 20, 2025

These outages happen to Amazon infrequently, says Mike Chapple, who teaches cybersecurity at the University of Notre Dame. "Hopefully you never have the same kind of failure happen twice," Chapple says.

Techi

Snapchat Outage Stokes ‘Internet Crisis’ Fears as ‘C14A’ Error Spreads

October 20, 2025

Professor Mike Chapple of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, a former National Security Agency computer scientist, noted that while most consumers don’t know DynamoDB, it functions as one of the modern internet’s primary record-keepers. When that record-keeping system’s address became unreachable, the cascading effects rippled across interconnected services globally.

CNN

The internet just had another global outage. Why does this keep happening?

October 20, 2025

“That’s on par with the other major cloud providers and, in fact, it’s amazing that they’re able to run at the scale they do without more frequent disruptions,” said Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert and IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “The reason these events attract much more notice is because of their impact,” he told CNN. “If a single company experiences an issue in their data center, it causes issues for that company’s products and services.”

Engadget

AWS fell on its face, knocking many apps, websites and games offline

October 20, 2025

“Amazon had the data safely stored, but nobody else could find it for several hours, leaving apps temporarily separated from their data,” Mike Chapple, a teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at University of Notre Dame, told CNN. “It’s as if large portions of the internet suffered temporary amnesia.”

The Guardian

‘Signs of recovery’ claims Amazon Web Services after internet outage hits many websites and apps

October 20, 2025

Mike Chapple, IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, explains why DynamoDB is important, and why its failure has caused so much disruption today: "DynamoDB isn’t a term that most consumers know, but it underpins the apps and services that all of us use every single day. It’s a centralized database service that many Internet-based services use to track user information, store key data, and manage their operations. DynamoDB is one of the record-keepers of the modern Internet. It’s fast, it’s cheap, and it’s reliable. But today it stopped working and we saw the effects of that outage ripple across the Internet. We’ll learn more in the hours and days ahead but early reports indicate that this wasn’t actually a problem with the database itself. The data appears to be safe. Instead, something went wrong with the records that tell other systems where to find their data. Amazon had the data safely stored, but nobody else could find it for several hours, leaving apps temporarily separated from their data."

Newsweek

AWS Outage Update Says ‘Fully Mitigated,’ Ring Down for Users: Live

October 20, 2025

Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Notre Dame, described the disruption as “temporary amnesia” for the internet, noting that while data remained intact, systems couldn’t locate it.

The Conversation

Your data privacy is slipping away – here’s why, and what you can do about it

July 11, 2025

Mike Chapple, Teaching Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, University of Notre Dame

WSBT TV

Penn-Harris-Madison schools combat ransomware attack, systems shut down as precaution

Video

March 04, 2025

WSBT sat down with Mike Chapple, an IT professor at Notre Dame. “What that means is malicious software got into one or more of their computer systems and encrypted the data stored on that system,” says Chapple.

ABC57

Penn-Harris-Madison says school week will go on as scheduled

Video

March 04, 2025

Mike Chapple, a teaching professor on Information Technology at Notre Dame, says these attacks start with a simple click and lead to devastating effects.

Associated Press

Apple drops encryption feature for UK users after government reportedly demanded backdoor access

February 21, 2025

The episode illustrates “one of the fundamental flaws in government efforts to undermine encryption," said Mike Chapple, an IT professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. Faced with having to choose between security and complying with government regulations, companies like Apple tend to remove security features entirely, said Chapple, a former computer scientist at the National Security Agency.

CNN

They were closing on their dream home. Then they fell for a little-known real estate scam

December 11, 2024

“If you go through the homebuying process these days, this sort of thing does happen,” said Michael Chapple, a business analytics and cybersecurity professor at the University of Notre Dame. “Unfortunately, it’s successful because people either don’t heed warnings about this type of attack, or it’s just too convincing and has an air of legitimacy to it.”

Health Tech Magazine

3 Tips for Healthcare Organizations to Guard Against Vishing and Smishing

July 10, 2023

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

BizTech Magazine

Which Types of Security Assessments Does Your Business Need?

June 02, 2023

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

Northwest Indiana Business Magazine

Seven tips to prevent identity theft during tax season

February 15, 2023

Cybersecurity expert Mike Chapple is a professor of information technology, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

CNET

Protect Your Tax Refund From Identity Theft With This Quick Tax Trick

January 30, 2023

"It's totally reasonable to assume that your Social Security number has been compromised at least once, if not many times," said Notre Dame technology professor Mike Chapple in an interview with Forbes.

Fed Tech Magazine

Do More to Protect Your Application Programing Interfaces

September 26, 2022

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

State Tech Magazine

5 Reasons to Upgrade Analog Video Cameras to Digital

July 21, 2022

Mike Chapple is a teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

Health Tech Magazine

Breaking Down SASE for Healthcare

April 08, 2022

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

BizTech Magazine

Does Your Business Need a Cloud Center of Excellence?

February 14, 2022

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

The Wall Street Journal

The Attack Surface Is Expanding. Enter Cyber AI

February 01, 2022

Mike Chapple, information security leader and IT, analytics, and operations teaching professor, University of Notre Dame.

Ed Tech Magazine

How to Avoid Security Breaches Within the IT Department

January 31, 2022

Mike Chapple is a teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

Health Tech Magazine

What to Know About Ransomware Crisis Planning

January 06, 2022

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

BizTech Magazine

How Businesses Can Secure Data from Shared Files After Employees Leave

Audio

November 08, 2021

Mike Chapple is associate teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.

CNN

Ransomware is a national security risk. It's time to treat it like one

June 10, 2021

Mike Chapple is teaching professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette

OPINION | MIKE MASTERSON: Keep it in wallet

May 18, 2021

"The attacks were extremely sophisticated and they were able to defeat some pretty sophisticated security controls," Mike Chapple said.

USA Today

'Life-or-death impacts': Colonial hack the latest in rising threat of ransomware attacks

May 13, 2021

"The attacks were extremely sophisticated, and they were able to defeat some pretty sophisticated security controls, or the right degree of security controls weren't in place," Mike Chapple said.

Foundation for Economic Education

The Government’s War on Pipelines Made Us Vulnerable to Attacks on Our Infrastructure

May 12, 2021

"This pipeline shutdown sends the message that core elements of our national infrastructure continue to be vulnerable to cyberattack,” Mike Chapple, a professor in University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, told Reuters.

ABC 57

ABC 57 News interviews Notre Dame Professor on Colonial Ransomware attacks

Video

May 11, 2021

ABC 57 News' Tiffany Salameh interviews Mike Chapple on the recent Ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline that have temporarily crippled the company.

WBUR

What The Ransomware Pipeline Attack Says About U.S. Infrastructure

Audio

May 10, 2021

Here & Now's Tonya Mosley speaks with Mike Chapple, cyber-security expert and information technology professor at The University of Notre Dame, about what the attack says about U.S. infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Government Technology

Ransomware Attack Forces Shutdown of Critical Gas Pipeline

May 10, 2021

Mike Chapple, a professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame and a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, told The Associated Press that systems that control pipelines should not be connected to the Internet and vulnerable to cyber intrusions.

Associated Press

Cyberattack on U.S. pipeline is linked to criminal gang

May 09, 2021

Mike Chapple, teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, said systems that control pipelines should not be connected to the internet and vulnerable to cyber intrusions.

NPR

Ransomware Attack Shuts Down A Top U.S. Gasoline Pipeline

May 09, 2021

"The fact that this attack compromised systems that control pipeline infrastructure indicates that either the attack was extremely sophisticated or the systems were not well secured," said Mike Chapple, a computer science professor at Notre Dame.

The Wall Street Journal

U.S. Pipeline Cyberattack Forces Closure

May 08, 2021

Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Notre Dame and former National Security Agency official, said the Colonial Pipeline attack appeared to show the hackers were “extremely sophisticated” or that the systems weren’t properly secured.

Forbes

Cyber Attack Shuts Down Vital Fuel Pipeline To Northeast U.S.

May 08, 2021

Regardless of how quickly Colonial gets operations restored, “this pipeline shutdown sends the message that core elements of our national infrastructure continue to be vulnerable to cyberattack,” says Mike Chapple, a computer scientist and professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

Associated Press

Major US pipeline halts operations after ransomware attack

May 08, 2021

Mike Chapple, teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency, said systems that control pipelines should not be connected to the internet and vulnerable to cyber intrusions.

Tech Target

Advice on how to prepare for the CompTIA Security+ exam

April 13, 2021

It is a certification where the person can read the book, watch the video course and go take the test, said Mike Chapple, professor at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and co-author of CompTIA Security+ Study Guide Exam SY0-601, Eighth Edition, published by Wiley.

CNN

Microsoft says hackers viewed its source code

January 01, 2021

Mike Chapple, a former National Security Agency official and an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attackers were likely looking for potential security vulnerabilities in Microsoft products that they could exploit to gain access to users of those products.

The Washington Post

Microsoft says Russians hacked its network, viewing source code

December 31, 2020

“Intruders can search the source code for software flaws that they might exploit, adding new weapons to their cyberwarfare arsenal,” said Mike Chapple, teaching professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame and a former computer scientist with the National Security Agency.

Ars Technica

~18,000 organizations downloaded backdoor planted by Cozy Bear hackers

December 14, 2020

Mike Chapple, a teaching professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the University of Notre Dame, said the tool is widely used to manage routers, switches, and other network devices inside large organizations.

CFO

Nation-State Hackers Breach Cybersecurity Firm

December 09, 2020

Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Notre Dame and a former National Security Agency official, called the FireEye breach “an extraordinarily significant attack.”

Business Insider

Hackers stole $3.5 billion FireEye's prized 'red team' hacking tools — here's why that's bad news and why they existed in the first place

December 09, 2020

"These attackers reached into FireEye's infrastructure and stole their crown jewels," said Mike Chapple, a professor of IT, analytics, and operations at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and former NSA computer scientist.

CNN

A firm that helps protect businesses and cities from cyberattacks just got hit by one

December 09, 2020

Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Notre Dame and a former National Security Agency official, called the FireEye breach "an extraordinarily significant attack."

NPR

Top Cyber Firm, FireEye, Says It's Been Hacked By A Foreign Govt.

December 08, 2020

"As one of the world's go-to cybersecurity firms, FireEye has a ringside seat for some of the most sophisticated breaches carried out worldwide," said Mike Chapple, a former computer scientist at the National Security Agency who now teaches at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

Fortune

Cybersecurity firm FireEye discloses that it was hacked, sending its shares spiraling

December 08, 2020

“The FireEye breach is an extraordinarily significant attack because of the nature of the target,” said Mike Chapple, teaching professor of IT, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, in written remarks.

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