Numerous websites briefly go down in widespread outage

FILE - This May 18, 2021, photo shows a woman typing on a laptop on a train in New Jersey. Major websites were down for Thursday in what appeared to be a brief but widespread outage. Major websites were down for Thursday, July 22, in what appeared to be a brief but widespread outage. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane) (Jenny Kane, Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

NEW YORK – Major websites went down Thursday in what appeared to be a brief but widespread outage.

The websites of Airbnb, AT&T, Costco and Delta showed error messages around midday Eastern time. They seemed to be operating normally, however, by 12:45 p.m.

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Akamai, a major behind-the-scenes internet network company, said the disruption lasted about an hour and that it was due to a software update in the system that directs browsers to websites. It said there was no cyberattack.

The company said it was reviewing how it updates software to try to prevent outages in the future.