Major Online Failure Hits Numerous Sites and Apps

A large-scale online failure has disrupted dozens online platforms and apps around the world, with users reporting problems getting online following issues at Amazon’s cloud computing system.

The disrupted apps include the social media app Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, along with a host of Amazon-owned operations like its key e-commerce platform and the Ring doorbell company.

Throughout Britain, Lloyds bank was impacted as well as its subsidiaries Halifax and Bank of Scotland, and further notifications of difficulties accessing the HM Revenue and Customs online portal on Monday morning. Furthermore across the UK, several Ring customers took to social media to complain their doorbells were not working.

In the UK alone, accounts of disruptions on specific platforms reached the tens of thousands for each app.

The company stated that the outage originated in the east coast of the America at Amazon Web Services, a division that supplies crucial internet framework for many businesses, who rent out capacity on Amazon servers. The cloud platform is the biggest global online services service.

Just after the start of the day (PDT) in the US (8am BST), officials reported “higher error rates and delays” for the cloud services in a area on the east coast of the America. The cascading impact was seen to disrupt apps around the world, with the outage tracking website reporting issues with the same sites in multiple continents.

The outage tracker Thousand Eyes, a service that reports on internet outages, also reported a increase in problems on Monday morning, and numerous instances situated in the Virginia area, the site of the AWS US-East-1 zone where the company stated the problems originated.