Major Online Disruption Impacts Many Online Platforms and Applications

A widespread internet failure has affected many online platforms and apps around the world, with users reporting troubles getting online following issues at the web hosting service.

The disrupted apps comprise Snapchat, the gaming platform Roblox, the messaging service Signal, and Duolingo, as well as several Amazon-operated platforms like its main retail platform and the Ring security device manufacturer.

In the UK, Lloyds bank was affected as well as its branches Halifax and the Scottish bank, while there were also reports of problems accessing the HMRC online portal on Monday morning. Also in the UK, multiple Ring customers used social media to complain their home gadgets were malfunctioning.

In the UK alone, accounts of problems on individual apps reached the tens of thousands for each platform.

The company stated that the outage started in the Atlantic coast of the United States at AWS, a unit that provides vital web infrastructure for a host of firms, who utilize space on Amazon servers. Amazon Web Services is the biggest global cloud computing service.

Soon after the start of the day (PDT) in the United States (8 in the morning BST), Amazon confirmed “elevated problem frequencies and delays” for AWS services in a region on the Atlantic seaboard of the America. The ripple effect was seen to hit platforms around the world, and the problem monitoring service showing issues with the same sites in multiple continents.

Cisco’s Thousand Eyes, a service that monitors internet outages, further indicated a increase in outages on that morning, and numerous instances located in the Virginia area, the site of the AWS US-East-1 zone where the company stated the issues began.