Substantial Internet Outage Impacts Numerous Sites and Apps

A large-scale internet outage has disrupted dozens online platforms and apps worldwide, with users reporting troubles accessing the internet after problems at Amazon’s web hosting service.

The disrupted platforms include the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, in addition to several Amazon-owned platforms like its main retail site and the Ring security home security firm.

In the UK, the financial institution Lloyds was disrupted as well as its affiliates the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with additional accounts of problems accessing the HM Revenue and Customs site on that morning. Furthermore across the UK, several Ring customers took to networks to state their doorbells were failing.

Just within Britain, accounts of problems on particular apps ran into the tens of thousands for every service.

Amazon reported that the outage began in the eastern region of the US at AWS, a section that supplies crucial internet infrastructure for many companies, who lease resources on Amazon servers. Amazon Web Services is the biggest global online services platform.

Soon after midnight (PDT) in the US (8am BST), the company announced “elevated failure rates and latencies” for AWS services in a region on the east coast of the United States. The ripple effect appeared to hit platforms globally, and the outage tracking website showing outages with the corresponding services in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a service that monitors internet outages, also reported a increase in issues on the start of the week, including several cases found in the Virginia area, the site of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where AWS said the outage began.