Global internet disruption as AWS outage hits major websites, apps worldwide
A major outage in Amazon Web Services (AWS) disrupted major websites and apps worldwide, including Fortnite, Snapchat, and Coinbase. The issue, traced to AWS's US-East-1 region in Northern Virginia, caused "increased error rates and latencies" across key services. AWS said it had "identified a potential root cause" and applied "initial mitigations" as engineers worked toward full recovery.
New Delhi: A widespread outage in Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday caused massive disruptions across the internet, crippling popular platforms and leaving millions of users unable to access essential online services. The failure, centered in AWS’s US-East-1 region in Northern Virginia, impacted major websites, apps, and games, underscoring the world’s heavy reliance on the company’s cloud infrastructure.
Partial recovery begins
AWS confirmed that "initial mitigations have been applied and some services are showing early signs of recovery.” However, the firm cautioned that "requests may continue to fail” as engineers worked toward a complete resolution. The company cited "increased error rates and latencies” in several of its key services, adding that it had "identified a potential root cause” linked to the DNS resolution of its DynamoDB API endpoint, a key database tool used by countless platforms.
"We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region,” AWS said in an update on its service status page. The company also noted that global features depending on the affected region—such as IAM updates and DynamoDB Global Tables—were experiencing problems.
Major services hit
The outage disrupted a vast list of high-profile platforms, including Amazon.com, Prime Video, Alexa, Fortnite, Roblox, Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG Battlegrounds, and Wordle. Social and creative apps like Snapchat, Signal, Canva, Duolingo, Crunchyroll, and Goodreads were also hit, alongside financial and media services such as Coinbase, Robinhood, Venmo, Chime, Lyft, CollegeBoard, Verizon, McDonald’s app, The New York Times, Life360, Apple TV, and Perplexity AI.
Perplexity AI’s CEO Aravind Srinivas confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that his startup was "down right now” due to the AWS issue, adding, "We’re working on resolving it.”
Extent of disruption
According to tracking site DownDetector, over 5,800 users had reported problems with AWS by 3:44 am ET, while Amazon.com itself logged more than 14,000 complaints. The US-East-1 region accounted for about 77% of the disruptions, followed by US-West-1 (13%) and US-West-2 (10%). Users experienced issues across Amazon’s mobile app (53%), home page (26%), and shopping cart (22%). While AWS engineers continue to restore services, the outage serves as a stark reminder of how deeply integrated cloud computing has become in global infrastructure — from gaming and communication to finance and governance.