Substantial Internet Outage Impacts Dozens Websites and Applications

A widespread internet outage has disrupted many websites and apps worldwide, and users reporting problems getting online due to difficulties at the web hosting platform.

The disrupted platforms encompass the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and Duolingo, in addition to a host of Amazon-owned platforms such as its primary shopping website and the Ring security device manufacturer.

Throughout Britain, the financial institution Lloyds was affected in addition to its subsidiaries the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with further notifications of problems reaching the the tax authority website on Monday morning. Also in the UK, several Ring users took to social media to complain their doorbells were not working.

In the UK alone, notifications of issues on particular applications reached the many thousands for each platform.

Officials confirmed that the problem originated in the eastern region of the America at the cloud division, a section that supplies vital internet backbone for a host of businesses, who rent out space on Amazon servers. AWS is the world’s largest web hosting service.

Just after the start of the day (PDT) in the United States (8 in the morning BST), the company announced “increased problem frequencies and slowdowns” for AWS services in a zone on the Atlantic seaboard of the US. The cascading impact seemed to hit platforms worldwide, and the outage tracking website reporting issues with the same sites in different parts of the world.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a tool that tracks internet outages, also reported a surge in outages on the start of the week, including several cases situated in Virginia, the region of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where officials confirmed the outage began.