Substantial Internet Outage Hits Many Websites and Apps

A large-scale internet failure has impacted dozens websites and mobile apps worldwide, with users experiencing issues accessing the internet after problems at the cloud computing service.

The impacted apps encompass the social media app Snapchat, the gaming platform Roblox, Signal, and Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-operated services such as its primary shopping platform and the Ring doorbell device manufacturer.

Across the United Kingdom, the financial institution Lloyds was disrupted as well as its subsidiaries the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, and also reports of problems using the the tax authority online portal on that morning. Furthermore across the UK, several Ring users turned to online platforms to report their security devices were not working.

Solely in the United Kingdom, reports of issues on specific platforms ran into the tens of thousands for each platform.

The company stated that the problem started in the eastern region of the United States at the cloud division, a section that supplies vital internet backbone for numerous firms, who utilize capacity on Amazon servers. AWS is the world’s largest web hosting system.

Just after late night (PDT) in the US (8am BST), the company announced “increased problem frequencies and slowdowns” for Amazon's platforms in a region on the east coast of the US. The cascading impact appeared to hit platforms globally, and the outage tracking website reporting outages with the corresponding services in different parts of the world.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that monitors internet outages, additionally noted a rise in problems on the start of the week, and numerous instances located in Virginia, the location of the eastern US data center where AWS said the issues began.