Significant Internet Failure Impacts Many Sites and Mobile Apps

A widespread online failure has affected dozens online platforms and mobile apps globally, as users noting problems connecting to the web due to difficulties at Amazon’s web hosting service.

The affected platforms comprise Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-owned services like its key e-commerce platform and the Ring security home security firm.

In the UK, Lloyds bank was impacted as well as its affiliates Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with further notifications of issues using the the tax authority online portal on Monday morning. Also in the UK, multiple Ring device owners turned to social media to state their home gadgets were failing.

Just within Britain, notifications of problems on individual applications totaled the many thousands for each app.

Amazon reported that the problem began in the eastern region of the America at AWS, a unit that offers vital internet infrastructure for numerous companies, who lease capacity on the company's servers. The cloud platform is the biggest global web hosting system.

Just after the start of the day (PDT) in the US (morning UK time), Amazon confirmed “higher error rates and latencies” for AWS services in a region on the eastern US of the US. The cascading impact was seen to affect apps around the world, and the outage tracking website indicating issues with the corresponding services in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a service that monitors online failures, also reported a surge in problems on Monday morning, and numerous instances found in Virginia, the site of Amazon’s US-East-1 region where officials confirmed the outage originated.