Significant Online Outage Impacts Dozens Online Platforms and Mobile Apps

A large-scale online failure has disrupted dozens sites and apps globally, and users reporting problems connecting to the web following issues at the cloud computing service.

The disrupted platforms comprise Snapchat, Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and the language learning app Duolingo, as well as multiple Amazon-operated operations including its primary shopping site and the Ring doorbell device manufacturer.

Across the United Kingdom, the financial institution Lloyds was affected along with its subsidiaries the bank Halifax and the Scottish bank, with additional accounts of difficulties accessing the HMRC online portal on Monday morning. Also in the UK, multiple Ring users used social media to report their security devices were not working.

Solely in the United Kingdom, notifications of issues on particular applications reached the many thousands for each platform.

The company stated that the issue began in the eastern region of the US at Amazon Web Services, a section that offers crucial online backbone for many companies, who rent out space on AWS infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is the world’s largest online services platform.

Just after the start of the day (PDT) in the US (8am BST), officials reported “increased failure rates and slowdowns” for the cloud services in a zone on the Atlantic seaboard of the America. The ripple effect was seen to hit services around the world, and the Downdetector site indicating issues with the same sites in multiple continents.

The monitoring service Thousand Eyes, a platform that monitors online failures, additionally noted a rise in problems on Monday morning, including several cases located in Virginia, the site of the eastern US data center where the company stated the outage began.