Substantial Internet Failure Hits Many Websites and Mobile Apps

A large-scale web disruption has affected many websites and applications around the world, with users experiencing troubles accessing the internet due to difficulties at Amazon’s web hosting system.

The disrupted platforms include Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, along with several Amazon-operated services such as its primary shopping platform and the Ring home security firm.

Across the United Kingdom, Lloyds bank was disrupted as well as its affiliates the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, and additional accounts of difficulties reaching the the tax authority website on that morning. Additionally in Britain, many Ring users took to social media to state their security devices were malfunctioning.

Solely in the United Kingdom, accounts of disruptions on specific apps totaled the tens of thousands for every service.

Amazon reported that the outage originated in the eastern region of the US at Amazon Web Services, a section that provides crucial online infrastructure for many businesses, who utilize capacity on Amazon servers. Amazon Web Services is the biggest global web hosting system.

Soon after midnight (PDT) in the US (8 in the morning BST), the company announced “elevated problem frequencies and latencies” for AWS services in a area on the east coast of the United States. The ripple effect was seen to affect platforms worldwide, with the outage tracking website indicating issues with the same sites in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a platform that tracks online failures, also reported a surge in issues on the start of the week, and numerous instances situated in Virginia, the region of the AWS US-East-1 zone where the company stated the problems started.