Major Internet Outage Affects Dozens Websites and Applications

A widespread online failure has impacted many sites and applications globally, as users reporting issues connecting to the web following issues at the online infrastructure service.

The impacted apps comprise the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, in addition to a host of Amazon-owned operations such as its main retail platform and the Ring doorbell home security firm.

Throughout Britain, the financial institution Lloyds was impacted along with its subsidiaries Halifax and the Scottish bank, while there were further notifications of problems accessing the HMRC website on that morning. Additionally in Britain, several Ring users turned to online platforms to complain their security devices were malfunctioning.

Solely in the United Kingdom, notifications of problems on specific platforms totaled the many thousands for each platform.

Officials confirmed that the issue started in the Atlantic coast of the America at Amazon Web Services, a unit that supplies essential web infrastructure for many firms, who utilize space on Amazon servers. AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing system.

Soon after late night (PDT) in the America (8am BST), the company announced “elevated problem frequencies and slowdowns” for AWS services in a zone on the Atlantic seaboard of the America. The ripple effect seemed to affect platforms around the world, with the Downdetector site reporting outages with the same sites in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a tool that monitors web disruptions, additionally noted a surge in outages on Monday morning, including several cases located in the Virginia area, the region of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where AWS said the issues started.