Major Internet Failure Hits Numerous Online Platforms and Apps

A widespread internet disruption has disrupted numerous websites and applications around the world, with users reporting troubles getting online following issues at Amazon’s cloud computing service.

The disrupted platforms comprise the social media app Snapchat, the gaming platform Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and Duolingo, as well as a host of Amazon-managed platforms including its main retail website and the Ring device manufacturer.

Throughout Britain, Lloyds bank was disrupted in addition to its subsidiaries Halifax and the Scottish bank, and additional accounts of issues using the HM Revenue and Customs online portal on the start of the week. Furthermore across the UK, many Ring device owners took to online platforms to complain their doorbells were not working.

Just within Britain, reports of problems on particular platforms totaled the thousands for each app.

Officials confirmed that the problem started in the Atlantic coast of the United States at Amazon Web Services, a division that supplies essential web infrastructure for numerous companies, who utilize space on AWS infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is the biggest global cloud computing system.

Soon after midnight (PDT) in the United States (8 in the morning BST), the company announced “higher problem frequencies and slowdowns” for AWS services in a area on the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. The cascading impact was seen to disrupt platforms around the world, with the problem monitoring service indicating problems with the corresponding services in multiple continents.

The monitoring service Thousand Eyes, a service that monitors internet outages, also reported a surge in problems on the start of the week, and numerous instances found in Virginia, the location of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where AWS said the outage started.