AWS Outage Disrupts Global Services, Recovery Underway

A major AWS outage disrupted apps and websites worldwide, exposing risks of cloud dependency. Recovery began after three hours of downtime.

Widespread Impact Across Digital Platforms

Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a significant outage on Monday, affecting thousands of websites and popular applications such as Snapchat, Reddit, and Roblox. The disruption lasted approximately three hours before systems began to recover, with AWS reporting “significant signs of recovery” by 6:00 a.m. ET. Services like PayPal’s Venmo, streaming platform Max, and Amazon’s own Prime Video and Alexa were also impacted. Downdetector recorded over 4 million user reports during the incident, making it one of the largest internet disruptions since the CrowdStrike failure in 2024.

According to cybersecurity expert Junade Ali, the issue likely stemmed from a networking system used to manage a database product within AWS. He noted that such problems are typically resolved centrally unless further complications arise. AWS confirmed that most requests were succeeding and that engineers were working through a backlog of queued operations. While Amazon declined to comment directly, its status page provided ongoing updates throughout the recovery process.

Broader Implications for Cloud Reliance

The outage affected a wide range of services, including financial platforms like Chime, trading apps such as Robinhood, and AI startup Perplexity. Gaming platforms like Fortnite, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans also reported disruptions, as did ride-hailing service Lyft. In the UK, banks and telecom providers including Lloyds, Vodafone, and BT experienced issues, along with the HMRC tax and customs website. Experts highlighted the risks of relying on a small number of cloud providers, noting that a single failure can cascade across global infrastructure.

Cloud Centralization and Resilience

The incident underscores the growing dependence on centralized cloud services and the challenges of maintaining resilience in such systems. Researchers like Nishanth Sastry from the University of Surrey emphasized that many large companies rely on a single provider, increasing vulnerability. Although no evidence of a cyberattack has emerged, the scale of the disruption has prompted speculation and concern. As digital ecosystems become more interconnected, the need for diversified infrastructure and robust contingency planning becomes increasingly critical.