Amazon Web Services (AWS) has restored its cloud services after a major outage that caused global disruptions across apps, websites, and essential online systems.
The failure affected workers and businesses from London to Tokyo, knocking them offline and interrupting daily tasks like making digital payments or booking flights. Many users reported problems using popular services such as Venmo and Zoom on Monday afternoon.
This was one of the largest internet disruptions in recent years, comparable to the 2024 CrowdStrike malfunction that crippled hospitals, banks, and airports worldwide. It was also the third major outage in five years linked to AWS’s northern Virginia data center, known as US-EAST-1, which is one of Amazon’s oldest and most widely used cloud regions.
According to Amazon, the problem began with the Domain Name System (DNS), which helps direct internet traffic to the correct servers. The issue made it impossible for certain applications to connect to AWS’s DynamoDB database, which stores critical user information. Later, the company explained that the root cause came from a faulty subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers — tools that help distribute traffic across multiple servers. The disruption affected many of AWS’s core services, including the EC2 computing platform.
By around 3 p.m. Pacific Time, Amazon confirmed that all services were back to normal. However, it noted that some systems, such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect, were still clearing backlogged messages.
Experts say the outage is another reminder of how much the world depends on a few large cloud providers. Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said developers have tools available to protect their systems from failures like this, but many skip these safety measures to cut costs. When outages happen, those shortcuts lead to major problems for both companies and users.
AWS is the world’s largest cloud service provider, offering computing power, storage, and digital infrastructure to companies, governments, and individuals. Because so many essential services rely on it, even a short outage can ripple across industries and cause widespread chaos.
In the United Kingdom, several major institutions were affected, including Lloyds Bank, the Bank of Scotland, Vodafone, BT, and even the government’s tax website, HMRC. Data from Downdetector showed more than four million users worldwide reported service issues linked to the outage.
A wide range of apps and platforms went down during the disruption. Popular services such as Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat, and Duolingo were hit, along with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, trading app Robinhood, and AI company Perplexity. Even Amazon’s own platforms — including its online store, Prime Video, and Alexa — experienced downtime. Gaming platforms like Fortnite, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans were also affected, and the ride-hailing app Lyft went offline across parts of the United States.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed that the messaging app was impacted, though Elon Musk said his platform X (formerly Twitter) continued to operate normally.
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Despite the massive scale of the outage, Wall Street appeared largely unfazed. Amazon’s stock price actually rose by 1.6 percent, closing at $216.48. Still, the incident has once again highlighted how fragile the world’s digital systems can be and how a single failure at a major cloud provider can disrupt millions of people around the world.
