Major Online Disruption Impacts Numerous Sites and Applications

A large-scale internet disruption has disrupted dozens sites and applications globally, with users reporting issues connecting to the web after problems at Amazon’s web hosting system.

The impacted services encompass the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, in addition to multiple Amazon-owned operations including its main retail platform and the Ring doorbell home security firm.

Throughout Britain, the financial institution Lloyds was disrupted along with its subsidiaries the bank Halifax and the Scottish bank, while there were additional accounts of difficulties using the HMRC online portal on the start of the week. Also in the UK, many Ring users took to networks to state their doorbells were failing.

In the UK alone, reports of disruptions on individual platforms ran into the tens of thousands for each platform.

Amazon reported that the problem started in the east coast of the United States at Amazon Web Services, a section that offers crucial online backbone for numerous firms, who lease space on Amazon servers. Amazon Web Services is the most extensive cloud computing platform.

Soon after midnight (PDT) in the US (8am BST), officials reported “increased error rates and delays” for the cloud services in a zone on the east coast of the US. The widespread consequence appeared to hit platforms globally, with the problem monitoring service indicating issues with the identical platforms in various regions.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that tracks internet outages, further indicated a surge in issues on the start of the week, and numerous instances found in the Virginia area, the location of the AWS US-East-1 zone where officials confirmed the problems started.