A major outage on Amazon Web Services (AWS) early Monday caused widespread disruptions to major websites and applications worldwide. The fault, traced to AWS’s northern Virginia data centre, affected over 70 services, disrupting platforms ranging from retail and gaming to finance and government.
AWS promptly acknowledged the issue and began recovery efforts, declaring by early morning that the outage had been fully mitigated, though some backlogs persisted. Popular sites impacted included Amazon’s shopping portal, Disney+, Snapchat, Reddit, Roblox, Fortnite, Coinbase, and Robinhood.
UK government websites like Gov.uk and HM Revenue & Customs also experienced difficulties, with officials confirming active communication with AWS to restore services swiftly. Lloyds Banking Group and airlines such as United and Delta reported service interruptions affecting customers’ online interactions.
Additional affected services included ride-hailing app Lyft, payment platform Venmo, and design software Canva.
Cybersecurity experts clarified the cause as a technical fault rather than a cyber attack. Rob Jardin, chief digital officer at NymVPN, said, “These issues can happen when systems become overloaded or a key part of the network goes down, and because so many websites and apps rely on AWS, the impact spreads quickly.”
He emphasised that “cybersecurity isn’t only about defending against threats–it’s also about resilience” through strategies like redundancy and multi-cloud solutions.
Instances like this show the critical dependence on cloud providers such as AWS, which accounted for $107 billion in revenue in 2024. Previous events, including a July 2024 software fault at CrowdStrike that caused global outages, remind businesses of the need for robust contingency plans.
As AWS continues restoring full functionality, the incident displays the importance of resilient infrastructure amid increasing digital reliance. Users and businesses are advised to follow updates while AWS and affected companies work towards complete recovery.