Key Takeaways
- AWS experienced a major global outage affecting thousands of websites and popular apps
- Systems began recovering after roughly three hours of disruptions
- Over 4 million users reported issues during the incident
- The outage highlights dependency risks on major cloud providers
AWS Outage Disrupts Global Services
Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS began recovering on Monday from a widespread outage that knocked out thousands of websites and disrupted major platforms including Snapchat, Reddit, and various financial services globally.
The three-hour disruption marked the largest internet outage since last year’s CrowdStrike incident, affecting hospitals, banks, and airports while exposing vulnerabilities in interconnected digital infrastructure.
Recovery Progress and Company Statement
Systems gradually came back online starting at 6:00 AM ET (1000 GMT), with AWS reporting “significant signs of recovery” for affected services.
“Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests,” the company stated in its latest status update.
Junade Ali, a software engineer and cyber expert at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, identified the issue with one of AWS’s networking systems controlling a database product.
“Unless there are further issues identified, the issue should be able to be mitigated over the coming hours,” he explained.
Major Platforms Affected
Ookla, owner of Downdetector, reported over 4 million user complaints during the incident. Among the affected services:
- Snapchat: Reports dropped from 22,000+ to 4,000
- Roblox: Reports decreased from 12,600+ to under 500
- Reddit and financial platform Chime remained significantly affected
- AI startup Perplexity, Coinbase, and Robinhood experienced disruptions
Amazon’s own services including its shopping platform, Prime Video, and Alexa were also impacted, though severity decreased over time.
Gaming platforms Fortnite, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans experienced outages, along with ride-sharing service Lyft in the United States.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was affected, while Elon Musk noted X continued functioning normally.
Global Impact and Systemic Risks
In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland, Vodafone, BT, and HMRC’s website faced issues, demonstrating the outage’s international reach.
Experts highlighted the incident reveals critical dependencies on a handful of cloud providers.
“The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service,” said Nishanth Sastry, Director of Research at University of Surrey’s Computer Science Department.
While no evidence suggested a cyberattack, the scale prompted speculation about system vulnerabilities.
“When anything like this happens, the concern that it’s a cyber incident is understandable,” noted Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at Sophos.
“AWS has a far-reaching and intricate footprint, so any issue can cause a major upset.”
