A huge outage has rendered ‘half the internet’ inaccessible, preventing millions of people from accessing sites such as Snapchat, Fortnite, and Duolingo, as well as key financial apps.
The issue is with Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing provider that drives most of the infrastructure for numerous websites.
The outage also impacted prominent Amazon services such as Amazon.com, Amazon Alexa, Ring, and Amazon Prime Video.
According to DownDetector, the troubles began just after 8 a.m. BST, with over 6,000 reports from affected US consumers.
According to DownDetector, a website that tracks internet outages, an additional 1,600 customers are affected in the UK.
Jake Moore, a tech specialist and security advisor at ESET, believes the massive outage is the result of a ‘internal issue’ at Amazon.
However, he believes we can’t rule out a cyberattack at this time.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: “While a cyberattack cannot be ruled out until AWS releases its full post-incident report, there is no current evidence of hacking, data breaches, or coordinated attacks.”
Amazon Web Services experienced a worldwide outage, affecting hundreds of websites that use the company’s cloud-hosting service.
According to Down Detector, the troubles began just after 8am BST Monday, with over 6,000 reports from affected US consumers.
The outage also impacted Amazon services such as Amazon.com, Amazon Alexa, Ring, and Amazon Prime Video. Pictured, Amazon.com on Monday.
Some of the platforms affected on Monday morning include Amazon services like Amazon.com and Ring, as well as gaming platforms like Fortnite and Roblox.
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Down Detector receives network status updates from social media platforms, reports provided through its website, and other sources on the internet.
It ‘only records an event when the number of problem complaints is much higher than the average volume for that time of day’.
According to the website, the problem arises from issues at Amazon’s huge data center in North Virginia (us-east-1), which serves as a crucial hub for the worldwide internet.
In total, 75% of the reported faults come from us-east-1, with the remainder coming from two additional US sites.
Professor James Davenport, an IT expert at the University of Bath, says it’s ‘worrying’ that an outage in this region is affecting UK banking apps like Lloyds and Halifax.
‘UK banks should limit their usage to the UK, or at least European regions, but it’s possible that they rely on a service that actually runs out of US-EAST-1,’ he added.
‘Obviously, this is having an impact today, but it could imply that some customer data is being handled in the United States, or that consumer usage patterns, even if not real banking data, can be deduced. We do not know.
‘This appears to indicate at least some unanticipated dependency (simple to happen, but thorough cloud auditing should have discovered it if Lloyds is guilty – quite probable a third-party dependency that Lloyds has not protected against). In any case, troubling.
Several users were concerned about their inability to access Snapchat.
One customer discovered the outage when their rain noises weren’t playing via Amazon Alexa.
According to Down Detector, a website that tracks internet outages, another 1,600 users and counting are affected in the United Kingdom.
What causes the outages?
Outages can occur on a local scale, such as in your own home, or they can be widespread, impacting entire neighborhoods, regions, or the globe.
Cyberattacks, equipment failure, and even large storms can all cause infrastructure damage.
Another probable reason is human error; for example, construction workers may accidentally cut through a cable while working on a road or building.
There have also been reports of vandalism, in which someone purposefully ruins internet infrastructure.
Several dissatisfied users have taken to X to discuss the issue.
‘Ring dorbell/cameras not working for 13 hours, I can’t view history on the app or sign in to the website…’ one customer tweeted.
Another user asked: ‘Is anyone else’s Amazon Alexa down? I can’t switch on any lights at home because they are all Alexa controlled…
And one joked: ‘Me heading to Twitter to really check I’m not the only one experiencing the Snapchat outage,’ with a GIF.
AWS offers cloud computing services to consumers, institutions, governments, and businesses worldwide, including servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and security.
When AWS goes down, so do the other websites that use its services, which is an embarrassment for the Amazon-owned platform because these businesses, colleges, individuals, and governments pay to use the service.
Major British banks, including Lloyds and Halifax, are also affected, as is GOV.UK, which is used to apply for visas, renew passports, and manage taxes.
The IT titan has confirmed the problem on the AWS Health Dashboard page, stating that there is a ‘operational issue’ affecting’multiple services’.
One frustrated Amazon Alexa discovered they were left in darkness during the downtime.
On X, one user complained that their Ring doorbell wasn’t working.
Several users have come to X to discuss the downtime, with Snapchat among the most talked-about apps.
‘Engineers were quickly engaged and are actively working to both mitigate the issue and fully identify the fundamental cause,’ AWS stated.
As of yet, it is unclear what caused the outage; Daily Mail has contacted AWS for comment.
Online outages can be caused by a variety of factors, but the most common cause is technical faults in configuration.
However, some outages are caused by cyber assaults, which are criminal attempts to damage or destroy a computer network or system.
Mr Moore stated that this problem appears to have resulted in a ‘cascading failure where one system’s slowness disturbed others’ across the platform.
‘It once again demonstrates our reliance on extremely vulnerable infrastructures with very few backup preparations for such failures,’ he told the Daily Mail.
AWS controls around 30% of the global cloud infrastructure business, which accounts for a significant percentage of the internet.
‘An outage like this can have a global impact.’
PlayStation (pictured) and Xbox are on the list of those vulnerable because they’re backed by Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing platform.
Major British banks, including Lloyds (pictured) and Halifax, are among the services affected, as are GOV.UK.
Over 130k Vodafone customers are experiencing broadband, internet banking, and signal issues due to a blackout. See article image.
‘Because so many global apps and websites rely heavily on AWS for cloud hosting and data processing, the interruption quickly spreads and has a knock-on effect on numerous services.’
Dr. Manny Niri, senior cyber security lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, believes there was a’serious failure’ at North Virginia (us-east-1).
‘The widespread disruption of major services, from Amazon’s own platforms like Prime Video and Alexa to others like Snapchat and Fortnite, appears to imply a serious breakdown in the main AWS US-East-1 region,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘This does not appear to be a minor software issue, but could include a failure in a critical component of the internet’s backbone, such as networking, storage, or compute services, which are required for the operation of dependent applications.
Dr. Niri went on to say, “For all affected businesses, this incident serves as a stark reminder that relying solely on one cloud region is extremely risky.”
‘Companies should promptly analyze their exposure, use multiple regions and failover solutions, and keep strong offline backups.
‘While cloud computing is extremely beneficial, this outage underlines the need for improved resilience, redundancy, and transparent communication from providers in order to mitigate the impact of such issues and maintain consumer trust.
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