Substantial Internet Outage Hits Many Sites and Applications

A large-scale online disruption has affected numerous sites and applications worldwide, with users reporting issues getting online after problems at the cloud computing platform.

The affected platforms comprise the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-managed operations like its main retail site and the Ring security home security firm.

Throughout Britain, Lloyds bank was disrupted in addition to its affiliates the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, while there were additional accounts of difficulties accessing the HM Revenue and Customs online portal on Monday morning. Additionally in Britain, many Ring users turned to social media to state their security devices were malfunctioning.

Just within Britain, reports of problems on specific apps totaled the tens of thousands for each platform.

The company stated that the problem started in the eastern region of the US at the cloud division, a unit that provides vital online framework for a host of firms, who utilize resources on AWS infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is the world’s largest cloud computing service.

Just after the start of the day (PDT) in the US (morning UK time), Amazon confirmed “elevated error rates and latencies” for AWS services in a area on the east coast of the US. The ripple effect was seen to disrupt platforms around the world, with the problem monitoring service reporting issues with the same sites in different parts of the world.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that tracks online failures, also reported a increase in issues on Monday morning, with many of them found in Virginia, the location of the eastern US data center where AWS said the issues started.