Major Online Failure Impacts Dozens Online Platforms and Applications

A large-scale web failure has impacted dozens websites and apps worldwide, and users noting issues connecting to the web following issues at the online infrastructure system.

The impacted services encompass the social media app Snapchat, the gaming platform Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, in addition to several Amazon-owned operations like its main retail platform and the Ring device manufacturer.

Across the United Kingdom, Lloyds bank was affected in addition to its affiliates Halifax and the Scottish bank, and additional accounts of difficulties accessing the HM Revenue and Customs website on Monday morning. Furthermore across the UK, multiple Ring customers turned to online platforms to complain their security devices were not working.

Just within Britain, reports of disruptions on individual applications reached the thousands for each app.

Officials confirmed that the issue started in the east coast of the US at Amazon Web Services, a unit that provides crucial internet infrastructure for numerous firms, who utilize resources on AWS infrastructure. AWS is the world’s largest cloud computing service.

Soon after late night (PDT) in the United States (8am BST), the company announced “elevated error rates and slowdowns” for AWS services in a region on the east coast of the US. The cascading impact appeared to affect apps worldwide, with the outage tracking website showing problems with the corresponding services in various regions.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a platform that tracks internet outages, further indicated a rise in outages on Monday morning, with many of them found in the Virginia area, the region of the eastern US data center where the company stated the problems started.