It can be annoying when the wifi signal is cut, but what about if everything digital we rely on were to crash suddenly - from satellites to life-support systems in hospitals?
That's the nightmare scenario that the UN is trying to avoid, in a call to all Member States to work together to avoid the cascading impacts of a "digital pandemic".
The risks to all of us are real and they have already been observed on Earth and in space, including a solar storm that narrowly missed Earth in 2012 that could have knocked out power grids and communications across entire continents.
"The common denominator of these unintentional disruptions is their tendency to cascade with impacts that spread across sectors like finance, like healthcare, transport, energy, and communications. And this can often happen simultaneously," warned Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the International Telecommunication Union, ITU .
Digital risks: From solar storms to extreme weather
In 1859, a powerful solar storm - the Carrington Event - disrupted telegraph systems worldwide, triggering electrical surges so intense that "sparks" flew from equipment, halting communications - the 19th century equivalent of an internet outage.
Such non-intentional disruptions remain a real threat today, warns the ITU- UNDRR report.
But risks are no longer limited to space weather. Extreme heat, storms and other climate-driven hazards are increasingly capable of damaging digital infrastructure, from power grids to data cables.
With modern societies far more dependent on digital networks, the impact of such failures could be global, rapid and far more severe.
