Substantial Web Outage Impacts Dozens Sites and Applications

An extensive online disruption has affected numerous online platforms and applications worldwide, with users noting issues getting online following issues at Amazon’s web hosting system.

The affected platforms comprise the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-operated operations including its main retail website and the Ring security home security firm.

Across the United Kingdom, the financial institution Lloyds was disrupted along with its affiliates Halifax and the Scottish bank, while there were additional accounts of difficulties using the HM Revenue and Customs website on Monday morning. Also in the UK, multiple Ring customers turned to networks to complain their doorbells were malfunctioning.

Solely in the United Kingdom, accounts of problems on specific apps reached the many thousands for each app.

Amazon reported that the problem began in the eastern region of the United States at the cloud division, a section that provides crucial internet infrastructure for many companies, who rent out resources on AWS infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is the most extensive online services system.

Shortly after midnight (PDT) in the US (morning UK time), Amazon confirmed “increased problem frequencies and slowdowns” for Amazon's platforms in a area on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. The ripple effect appeared to hit services globally, with the Downdetector site reporting problems with the corresponding services in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a platform that reports on internet outages, also reported a surge in problems on the start of the week, and numerous instances situated in the state of Virginia, the region of the AWS US-East-1 zone where AWS said the issues started.