Major Internet Outage Hits Many Sites and Mobile Apps

A widespread online outage has impacted numerous sites and mobile apps worldwide, and users experiencing issues connecting to the web after problems at the online infrastructure platform.

The disrupted platforms include the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-owned services including its key e-commerce website and the Ring home security firm.

Across the United Kingdom, Lloyds bank was disrupted in addition to its branches the bank Halifax and Bank of Scotland, while there were further notifications of problems accessing the HM Revenue and Customs website on that morning. Furthermore across the UK, multiple Ring device owners used networks to report their home gadgets were malfunctioning.

Just within Britain, notifications of disruptions on individual platforms reached the tens of thousands for each app.

Officials confirmed that the outage originated in the Atlantic coast of the US at the cloud division, a unit that provides essential online backbone for a host of businesses, who lease space on the company's servers. AWS is the most extensive web hosting system.

Soon after midnight (PDT) in the US (8 in the morning BST), officials reported “elevated problem frequencies and slowdowns” for Amazon's platforms in a region on the east coast of the US. The cascading impact appeared to hit services globally, and the problem monitoring service reporting problems with the identical platforms in different parts of the world.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a platform that monitors internet outages, also reported a rise in outages on that morning, including several cases found in the Virginia area, the location of the eastern US data center where the company stated the issues originated.