Major AWS outage disrupts global internet services
Amazon Web Services experienced a widespread outage early Monday morning, causing disruptions to thousands of websites and applications used by millions globally. The issue, which began around 3 a.m. Eastern Time, affected popular platforms including Snapchat, Fortnite, Robinhood, Signal, and Coinbase, leaving users unable to access essential services during the morning commute.
AWS attributed the disruption to its domain name system (DNS), which translates web addresses into IP addresses that enable websites and apps to load on internet-connected devices. The outage originated in AWS’s US-EAST-1 region in Northern Virginia, one of the company’s largest data centers that handles substantial portions of global internet traffic.
“We can confirm substantial error rates for requests directed to the DynamoDB endpoint in the US-EAST-1 Region.”
— AWS status update
The outage impacted approximately 82 AWS offerings and affected 64 internal AWS services. According to DownDetector, which tracks online service disruptions, thousands of users reported problems with Roblox, Duolingo, Canva, Wordle, and the McDonald’s app. Even Amazon’s own services, including Ring doorbell cameras, Alexa-enabled speakers, Prime Video, and the Amazon retail platform, experienced difficulties.
Business and Financial Impact
Trading platforms Robinhood and Coinbase confirmed they experienced issues related to the AWS outage. Cryptocurrency exchange platforms faced particular challenges, with users unable to access their accounts during active trading hours. Ride-sharing service Lyft’s app was down for thousands of users in the United States, while customers of several UK banks also reported outages.
AI startup Perplexity acknowledged the disruption through its CEO, Aravind Srinivas, stating on X: “Perplexity is currently down. The underlying cause is an AWS issue. We are working to resolve this”. The widespread nature of the outage demonstrated the extent to which businesses and organizations worldwide depend on AWS infrastructure for operational continuity.
Amazon’s stock experienced a minor dip of 0.8% during intraday trading as news of the outage spread, though the company’s shares showed resilience given AWS’s importance to Amazon’s profitability. AWS contributes significantly to Amazon’s bottom line, generating $107 billion in revenue during the 2024 financial year, accounting for 17% of the company’s overall earnings.
Recovery and Response
Approximately three hours after the initial disruption, AWS announced it was beginning to recover from the problem. By 6 a.m. Eastern Time, Amazon reported that recovery was underway for most affected services, stating: “We can confirm services and APIs that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered”. The company later declared the issue “fully mitigated” and confirmed most services were returning to normal.
“We actively engaged and are working to mitigate the issue and understand the root cause.”
— AWS health dashboard
Amazon did not provide a specific explanation for what caused the DNS failure. The company’s status page indicated engineers were “actively pursuing multiple parallel paths to expedite recovery” during the outage.
Infrastructure Dependency Concerns
The outage reignited discussions about the internet’s vulnerability to single points of failure and the concentration of critical infrastructure among a few major cloud providers. Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity specialist at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in the U.K., noted: “A significant portion of the world now depends on three or four major cloud computing firms that provide the foundational infrastructure, so when a problem like this arises, it can have a substantial impact across a wide array of online services”.
Cybersecurity experts emphasized that the world now operates heavily on cloud infrastructure, with the internet viewed as a utility comparable to water or electricity. The outage exposed concerns about over-dependence on a limited number of cloud providers, with some internet specialists arguing that firms often rely too heavily on a single cloud service provider without sufficient redundancies.
While some social media speculation suggested the possibility of a Chinese cyberattack, cybersecurity analysts found no verified evidence linking the event to foreign state-sponsored activity. Previous AWS failures in 2021 and 2023 were traced to network configuration issues and operational errors rather than hacking attempts.
This incident marks the latest in a series of significant AWS disruptions. The longest recent outage occurred in late 2021, affecting various companies from airlines and auto dealerships to payment applications and streaming services for over five hours. Similar outages were recorded in 2020 and 2017. A brief outage in 2023 also caused numerous popular internet services to go offline.
AWS remains one of the world’s largest cloud computing service providers, competing with Google and Microsoft to deliver on-demand computing resources, data storage, and digital services to enterprises and organizations globally. The company serves some of the largest corporations and government agencies worldwide, providing essential cloud infrastructure that supports their online operations.
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