Internet users around the world faced widespread disruption early on Monday because of a problem at Amazon's cloud computing service that took down dozens of major online services, including social media site Snapchat, the Roblox and Fortnite video games and chat app Signal.
About three hours after the outage began, Amazon Web Services said it was
Amazon Web Services provides behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to many government departments, universities and businesses, including The Associated Press, which allows them to provide online services.
On DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, users reported issues with Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, online broker Robinhood, the McDonald鈥檚 app and many other services. DownDetector said the problems were: 鈥淧ossibly related to issues at Amazon Web Services.鈥�
Coinbase and Signal both said on X that they were experiencing issues related to the AWS outage.
Even Amazon's own services weren't immune. Users of the company's Ring doorbell cameras and Alexa-powered smart speakers posted on DownDetector that they weren't working, while others said they were unable to access the Amazon website or download books to their Kindle.
Amazon pinned the outage on issues related to their domain name system, an apparatus that converts web addresses into IP addresses so websites and apps can load on internet-connected devices.
The first signs of trouble emerged at around 3:11 a.m. Eastern Time, when Amazon Web Services reported on its Health Dashboard that it was 鈥渋nvestigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.鈥�
Later, the company reported that there were 鈥渟ignificant error rates鈥� and that engineers were 鈥渁ctively working鈥� on the problem.
Around 6 a.m. Eastern Time, the company said that it was seeing recovery across most of the affected services. 鈥淲e can confirm global services and features that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered,鈥� it said, adding that it is working on a 鈥渇ull resolution.鈥�
This is not the first time issues with Amazon鈥檚 key services have caused widespread disruptions. Many popular internet services were down after a brief . AWS鈥檚 longest outage in recent history occurred in late 2021, when companies -- everything from airline reservations and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services -- were affected for . Outages also happened in 2020 and .
The company reported that 64 internal AWS services were affected by the issue.
AWS customers include some of the world鈥檚 biggest businesses and organizations.
鈥淪o much of the world now relies on these three or four big (cloud) compute companies who provide the underlying infrastructure that when there鈥檚 an issue like this, it can be really impactful across a broad range, a broad spectrum鈥� of online services, said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert at U.K.-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
鈥淭he world now runs on the cloud,鈥� and the internet is seen as a utility like water or electricity, as we spend so much of our lives on our smartphones, Burgess said.
And because so much of the online world鈥檚 plumbing is underpinned by a handful of companies, when something goes wrong, 鈥渋t鈥檚 very difficult for users to pinpoint what is happening because we don鈥檛 see Amazon, we just see Snapchat or Roblox,鈥� Burgess said.
鈥淭he good news is that this kind of issue is usually relatively fast (to resolve)鈥� and there鈥檚 no indication that it was caused by a cyber incident like a cyberattack, Burgess said.
鈥淭his looks like a good old-fashioned technology issue, something鈥檚 gone wrong and it will be fixed by Amazon,鈥� he said.
There are 鈥渨ell-established processes鈥� to deal with outages at Amazon Web Services, as well as rivals Google and Microsoft, which together provide most of the world鈥檚 cloud computing infrastructure, Burgess said, adding that such outages are usually fixed in 鈥渉ours rather than days.鈥�
Amazon Web Services said at about 6:30 a.m. Eastern time that 鈥渕ost AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now.鈥�
